The Best Cities to Visit in Morocco

Essaouira

 This small town is exotic with its fortified walls, fishing harbor and seagulls soaring and screaming over the town, it is by popular acclaim Morocco’s most likeable resort: an eighteenth-century town, enclosed by medieval-looking battlements. Its whitewashed and blue-shuttered houses and colonnades, wood workshops and art galleries, boat-builders and sardine fishermen and feathery Norfolk Island pines, which only thrive in a pollution-free atmosphere, all provide a colorful and very pleasant backdrop to the beach. Many of the foreign tourists making their own way to Essaouira are drawn by the wind, known locally as the Alizée ,which in spring and summer can be a bit remorseless for sunbathing but creates much-sought-after waves for windsurfing and, increasingly, kiteboarding or kitesurfing. The same winds make Essaouira pretty terrible for surfing.

Fez

Along with Marrakech, Fes is Morocco’s other big cultural destination. But unlike its sister Imperial City to the south, Fes hasn’t been trussed up for the tourists. Fes el Bali (Old City) is an authentic muddle of a place where it’s near impossible to not get lost. The back alleys here with their chipped plaster-work and gorgeous old doors will have you stopping for photos on every corner, while the stinking tanneries are one of Fes el Bali’s most popular attractions for those who can handle the smell.