11-Day Casablanca to Marrakech Tour via Chefchaouen & Sahara

Your driver-guide meets you in the arrivals hall of Mohammed V Airport, holding a sign with your name, and drives you into Casablanca. What you see today depends on your flight.

If you land in the morning or early afternoon, you visit the Hassan II Mosque, built over the Atlantic with a 210-metre minaret and open to non-Muslims on guided tours. Then you can drive along the Corniche and through the Art Deco centre.

The evening is free to rest. Your guide can recommend a restaurant for fresh fish or your first tagine.

After your first night in Casablanca, the motorway takes you an hour north along the coast to Rabat, the capital, a city of gardens and wide avenues.

You walk among the columns around the Hassan Tower, visit the white marble Mausoleum of Mohammed V with its guards on horseback, and climb through the blue-and-white Kasbah of the Udayas to the terrace above the river mouth.

Later there is time for the medina, small and easy-going, before dinner and the night in a riad in Rabat.

Today you head north from Rabat across farmland and into the Rif foothills, where Ouazzane is surrounded by olive groves.

The last hour winds through the mountains to Chefchaouen, the blue town. After checking in, you wander the painted lanes with their flowerpots and sleeping cats.

Visit the kasbah on the main square and the spring of Ras el Ma, and walk to the Spanish Mosque to watch the sunset over the town.

After leaving the blue town, the road leads down through the hills to Volubilis, where Roman columns, an arch and mosaic floors rise from the olive groves.

You pass Moulay Idriss, sacred town of Morocco's first ruler, and stop in Meknes for lunch, the imperial gate of Bab Mansour and the granaries of Sultan Moulay Ismail.

Fes is an hour away; you arrive in the late afternoon and check in to your riad.

Today a licensed local guide shows you Fes el-Bali, the old medina, entering through Bab Boujloud. The lanes are too narrow for cars, so the city sounds of hammers, voices and hooves rather than engines.

You visit a madrasa of carved plaster and cedar, see the Al-Qarawiyyin, founded in 859, through its great doors, pass through the coppersmiths' square of Seffarine and watch the tanners at Chouara from above.

After lunch you drive to the Royal Palace gates, the Mellah and a pottery cooperative, finishing with a view over the medina. Later in the day you are free to explore on your own or rest at the riad.

A long day from Fes to the Sahara. You start early, climbing to Ifrane and through the cedar forest of the Middle Atlas, where Barbary macaques are a common sight.

After the high pastures, lunch is in Midelt. The afternoon brings the Ziz gorges and a viewpoint over the green Ziz Valley.

Past Erfoud the dunes of Erg Chebbi glow on the horizon. In Merzouga you ride a camel into the sand for sunset and spend the night at a desert camp.

The morning light on Erg Chebbi is reason enough to get up early: watch it from a high dune, then have breakfast at the camp and return to the village.

A 4x4 then takes you around the dunes to meet the people who live here: Gnawa musicians in Khamlia and a nomad family in the black desert, who share tea and talk about their herds and their moves. Fossil beds and old mine shafts are stops along the way.

Spend the afternoon at leisure and the night in a hotel at the foot of the dunes.

After two nights in Merzouga, watch the sunrise one more time from the dunes, then return to the village for breakfast.

The drive west passes Rissani, near the ruins of Sijilmassa, where the souk is busiest on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, and crosses a plateau lined with khettara mounds.

Todra Gorge is the afternoon's walk, between sheer limestone walls, and the Dades Valley is your stop for the night.

Today you follow the Road of a Thousand Kasbahs west through the Valley of Roses and the oasis of Skoura.

After Ouarzazate, you visit Ait Ben Haddou, climbing through its lanes, and have lunch with a view of the ksar.

The road then climbs to the Tizi n'Tichka, the highest pass of the High Atlas, and drops down to Marrakech by early evening.

After crossing the Atlas yesterday, today you stay in Marrakech and discover it with a licensed local guide. You start at the Koutoubia, whose minaret has watched over the city since the twelfth century, then visit the Bahia Palace and its painted courtyards.

The Saadian Tombs and the spice stalls of the old Jewish quarter come before lunch. In the afternoon your guide leads you through the souks, from the slipper makers to the dyers and the lantern workshops.

If you still have energy, add the Ben Youssef Madrasa. In the evening, Jemaa el-Fna fills with grills, storytellers and Gnawa drummers.

The final morning is yours to enjoy Marrakech. Visit the Majorelle Garden early, before the crowds, or explore the Ben Youssef Madrasa and the Secret Garden in the medina.

You may want to do some last shopping in the souks, now with a good eye for quality.

Your driver collects you from your riad for the transfer to Marrakech Menara Airport, the train station or your next hotel.