Morocco - Cities & empires

Fly at c. 11.30am from London Heathrow to Casablanca via Madrid (Iberia), with onward travel to Rabat by private coach (c. 2 hours). Dinner is served on arrival at the hotel. First of two nights in Rabat.

Rabat on the Atlantic coast is the successor to the Roman town of Sala Colonia which became a major city under the Almohads in the twelfth century, an independent pirate republic in the sixteenth century and the capital of modern Morocco in the twentieth century. Massive gateways, the striking Tour Hassan Mosque, and the Qasaba of the Udaya on a cliff above the sea, remain from the twelfth century, along with the fourteenth-century necropolis of Chellah, and a plethora of modern museums

Meknes was a small walled provincial town nestling in olive groves until the seventeenth century when the Alawi sultan Mawlay Ismail founded a vast imperial city to house his army of enslaved sub-Saharan Africans, the Abid al-Bukhari. The ruins of this city dominate the town which also houses a beautiful Marinid madrasa and a museum of music in a nineteenth-century mansion. To the north, on the edge of the olive-covered Zarhoun hills, lie the ruins of Volubilis, the capital of Roman Morocco, with triumphal arch, basilica and mosaics. First of three nights in Fes.

 Two full days to explore the extraordinary walled medieval city of Fes that stands at the heart of Moroccan culture. The old city (Fes al-Bali) was founded in the eighth century and expanded considerably by the Marinids in the fourteenth century, who also built New Fes (Fes al-Jadid) not to be confused with the French ville nouvelle. Highlights include views from the north and south bastions, the Qarawiyyin Mosque, the Attarin Madrasa, the Bu Inaniyya Madrasa as well as the markets, warehouses and pungent tanneries in Old Fes. In New Fes, we see the façade of the royal palace and the Jewish quarter (Mellah) and its cemetary. 

Pick up the old caravan trail south, stopping at Midelt before crossing the nomad-grazed high plateau of the Middle Atlas and descending along the Ziz valley to the Tafilalt oasis on the edge of the Sahara. First of two nights in Erfoud.

Visit Tafilalt, the ancestral home of the current kings of Morocco, including the exposed mounds and ruined mud walls that were once the glittering medieval caravan city of Sijilmasa. Evening excursion to see the sunset over the sand dunes of the desert of Merzouga. Second night in Erfoud.

Follow a chain of palm-filled valleys west, crossing through the old market town of Tinghir and the Dades valley. See the extraordinary tapered towers of the kasbahs dotted along the route. Leave the main road for the Todra Gorge with its vividly contrasting colours of bright green vegetation set against red, brown and orange rock faces. Overnight Ouarzazate.

Visit the Taourirt kasbah in Ouarzazate, home of the infamous Glawi Pasha, and the celebrated kasbah of Aït Benhaddou. Cross the High Atlas via the twisting Tiz-n-Tichka pass. Descend through woodland on the north face of the mountains down to the red city of Marrakech for the first of three nights.

The Almohad Kutubiyya Mosque minaret, standing 70m high, is the oldest of the three 12th century mosque towers constructed in Marrakech, Rabat and Seville. It stands in the medieval royal quarter where the fine, stone-carved Agnaw Gate can also be seen. This area was used for elite residences such as the Bahia Palace, belonging the chief minister Ba Ahmad, until the 19th-century. In modern Marrakech, we see the Majorelle gardens, famous for their colourful blue buildings, bamboo and cacti. The Yves St Laurent Foundation is next door.

A morning devoted to the architectural achievements of the sixteenth-century Sa’di dynasty, financed by the sale of sugar produced at Chichaoua to the west. The Sa’di tombs celebrate the dynasty in finely decorated pavilions that give a taste of the original decoration of their vast palace, the Badi’, which was stripped by their successors. The spacious and elegant Bin Yusuf madrasa is also a Sa’di building at the heart of Marrakech next to its oldest monument, the 11th century Almoravid Pavilion. In the afternoon visit the world-famous markets and Djemaa el-Fna Square.

Fly from Marrakech to London Heathrow (British Airways), arriving at c. 4.45pm.