7 Day Tour from Tangier to Marrakech via the Desert

We come down out of the Rif towards the Saiss plain. First stop is Volubilis, the best preserved Roman city in Morocco and a UNESCO site. The arch of Caracalla, the capitol and the basilica are standing, and above all the mosaics, still in the floors of the houses where they were laid.

A few kilometres on is Moulay Idriss Zerhoun, the holy town of white houses climbing two hills around the tomb of the founder of the first Moroccan dynasty.

In the afternoon we enter Meknes: Bab Mansour, the most worked tiled gate in the country, the El Hedim square and the vaulted granaries of Moulay Ismail, built to feed twelve thousand horses.

We reach Fez at the end of the day. Dinner and overnight in a riad in the medina.

A full day in Fez, on foot. Fez el Bali is the largest car-free urban area in the world, and it still works the way it always has, with the trades grouped by quarter.

We see the Bou Inania madrasa, the courtyard of the Al Qarawiyyin university, founded in 859 and considered the oldest continuously operating university anywhere, and the Chouara tanneries from the terraces of the leather workshops.

In the afternoon we walk the souks by guild and, if you like, the Andalusian quarter across the river, which is much quieter.

Second night in Fez.

We head south. We stop at Ifrane, the mountain town of pitched roofs people call little Switzerland, and at the cedar forest of Azrou, where Barbary macaques gather by the Gouraud Cedar.

We cross the Middle Atlas at Midelt, apple country in the corridor between the two ranges, and the vegetation gives out.

The last stretch runs down the Ziz valley, a palm grove tens of kilometres long wedged between red rock walls, with a viewpoint where the river and the palms run out of sight. Dinner and overnight in the Erfoud area.

We start in Erfoud, capital of the fossil trade, then Rissani, built over the ruins of Sijilmasa, from which the gold caravans left for Timbuktu. The souk runs on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays and is still a working local market. We eat medfouna, the stuffed flatbread baked under hot sand.

In the afternoon we move towards Merzouga and, depending on the season, out to Dayet Srji, the seasonal lake where flamingos stop in spring, or to Khamlia, where gnawa music is played live.

As the light drops we swap the car for a camel and ride into Erg Chebbi, dunes reaching 150 metres. An hour and a half in caravan brings us to camp, with time to climb a dune for sunset. Berber dinner, drums by the fire and a night in a tent.

Sunrise over the erg and a camel ride back to the village. Breakfast and a shower at the hotel before we set off west.

We pass through Tinghir, a long narrow oasis of palms between bare mountains, and walk into the Todra gorges, where the walls rise 300 metres and close to about ten metres with the river running along the floor.

In the afternoon we drive up the Dades canyon, with its zigzag bends and the eroded rock formations people here call monkey fingers, and stop in the rose valley at Kelaat M Gouna.

Dinner and overnight in the Dades valley.

An easy stage along the Road of a Thousand Kasbahs. We stop at the Skoura palm grove and the Amridil kasbah, the one that appears on the fifty dirham note.

We reach Ouarzazate around midday, with the Taourirt kasbah that belonged to the Glaoui family and, if the cinema interests you, the studios that have made the town the desert set for half of Hollywood.

In the afternoon we go on to Ait Ben Haddou with the light dropping, which is when the ksar looks its best. We cross the Ounila river and climb to the granary at the top.

Dinner and overnight near the kasbah.