16-Day Morocco Discovery Tour from Casablanca

On arrival at Mohammed V Airport, your driver-guide meets you and drives you to your hotel in Casablanca.

If time allows, you visit the Hassan II Mosque, one of the largest in the world and open to non-Muslims on guided tours, then drive along the oceanfront Corniche.

The rest of the evening is free. Ask your guide for a recommendation for dinner.

Today you travel north along the Atlantic. In Rabat, the capital, you see the Hassan Tower, the Mausoleum of Mohammed V and the blue-and-white Kasbah of the Udayas above the river.

After lunch you continue to Asilah, a small white town inside Portuguese walls, with murals painted by artists each summer. A walk along the ramparts leads to a lookout over the ocean.

Tangier is less than an hour away. You check in to your hotel and have the evening free for a first walk on the seafront.

Today you travel from Tangier into the Rif Mountains. On the way you stop in Tetouan, whose white medina was built by refugees from Andalusia.

The road then climbs through cork oaks and pines, with views back to the Mediterranean.

In the early afternoon you reach Chefchaouen. After lunch, wander its blue lanes and the kasbah square, and walk to the Spanish Mosque for the sunset.

A full day to enjoy Chefchaouen, founded in 1471 in the Rif Mountains. The Andalusian families who settled here left their mark on its architecture, and the blue came later.

Explore in the morning, when the lanes are calm: the kasbah and its garden, a weaver's workshop, and the waterfall and washing place of Ras el Ma.

In the afternoon you can sit in the square with tea, shop for local crafts or walk up to the Spanish Mosque to watch the sun set over the town.

After a last breakfast with a view of the blue town, you drive south out of the Rif, the mountains giving way to rolling hills of olives, cereals and cork oak.

Volubilis is the highlight of the day. With a local guide you explore the largest Roman site in Morocco: the forum and basilica, the arch raised for Emperor Caracalla, olive presses and the villas whose mosaics show Diana bathing and the voyage of Bacchus.

You have lunch in Meknes, the imperial city of Moulay Ismail, and admire the tiled gate of Bab Mansour and the huge vaulted granaries. The road then brings you to Fes for the evening, and you walk into the medina to your riad.

Today you explore Fes el-Bali with a licensed local guide, starting at the blue gate of Bab Boujloud. The medina is a world of its own, with mosques, markets and workshops packed into a maze of lanes.

Highlights are a madrasa of carved cedar and plaster, the doors of the Al-Qarawiyyin, founded in 859, the coppersmiths of Seffarine and the Chouara tannery, where leather is dyed in round stone pits.

After lunch a drive takes in the Royal Palace, the Jewish quarter and a pottery cooperative, finishing at a viewpoint. The afternoon is free before you head for the Middle Atlas.

A day in the Middle Atlas on the way to the Sahara. You leave Fes for Ifrane, a town built as a mountain resort, and stroll around its lake and gardens.

Then comes the cedar forest near Azrou, one of the largest in North Africa, where you walk among the trees and watch the macaques.

In the afternoon you cross the high plateaux, where shepherds graze their flocks, and arrive in Midelt for the night.

Leaving Midelt, the road crosses the eastern High Atlas and follows the Ziz River through a deep gorge lined with kasbahs.

After Errachidia you stop at a lookout over the Ziz Valley's palm groves, then continue to Erfoud for lunch and a visit to a fossil workshop.

By mid-afternoon you are in Merzouga. A camel ride takes you into Erg Chebbi for sunset, and the night is in a desert camp with dinner and drumming.

The day begins with sunrise watched from a dune, the desert completely silent around you. Breakfast is in camp, then you return to Merzouga.

A 4x4 tour then shows you the life around Erg Chebbi: Khamlia and its Gnawa musicians, the abandoned lead mines, and a nomad family on the black desert who share tea in their tent. After a rainy winter, flamingos sometimes gather on the seasonal lake of Dayet Srji.

The afternoon is free; the night is in a hotel at the foot of the dunes.

Your desert stay ends with sunrise over the sand sea and breakfast back in Merzouga.

The road west passes through Rissani, heir to the caravan city of Sijilmassa, with its souk on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, and across a plateau where mounds trace the old khettara canals.

Todra Gorge comes in the afternoon, a walk between towering limestone cliffs, and then the Dades Valley for dinner and the night.

This morning you drive down the Dades Valley, lined with kasbahs and walnut trees, to Kalaat M'Gouna, the capital of the Damascus rose, where a cooperative explains how the petals are distilled into rosewater.

In the palm grove of Skoura you visit Kasbah Amridil, a family fortress of earth and straw more than three centuries old, before continuing to Ouarzazate for lunch.

The afternoon is free for Taourirt Kasbah, the former seat of the Glaoui pashas, or the Atlas Film Studios, and you spend the night at your hotel in Ouarzazate.

You leave Ouarzazate after breakfast and drive half an hour west to Ait Ben Haddou.

There you cross the river and climb through the ksar's lanes, past houses still lived in, to the granary on the summit.

After lunch the Tizi n'Tichka pass leads you over the High Atlas to Marrakech, which you reach in the late afternoon.

Today your licensed guide shows you the highlights of Marrakech. The Koutoubia's twelfth-century minaret is the first stop, then the Bahia Palace, with its gardens and painted rooms.

After the Saadian Tombs and the Mellah, lunch is followed by the souks, where you visit craftsmen's workshops rather than just shops.

The Ben Youssef Madrasa and the Majorelle Garden are optional. At dusk, Jemaa el-Fna fills with musicians and food stalls.

Leaving Marrakech, the road crosses the plain to the argan forest. You may see goats feeding high in the trees, and a cooperative stop shows how the oil is made.

In Essaouira the climate changes to cool ocean breezes, and you settle into your riad inside the medina, laid out in the eighteenth century behind thick sea walls.

The evening is free for a first stroll through the lanes and a dinner of fresh fish.

Most of today is yours to enjoy Essaouira at your own pace. Walk the Skala ramparts with their old bronze cannons, watch the blue fishing boats come in to the harbour, browse the thuya-wood workshops and art galleries of the medina, or spend a few hours on the long sandy beach.

For lunch, the fish stalls by the port grill sardines, sea bream and prawns chosen straight from the morning catch, or you can pick one of the small restaurants inside the walls.

In the late afternoon your driver meets you for the return journey through the argan country, and you arrive back in Marrakech in the evening for your final night at your riad.

The last day of your journey is planned around your flight. If you leave later in the day, you have a free morning in Marrakech for the Majorelle Garden, the Secret Garden in the medina or some final shopping in the souks.

At the agreed time your driver takes you to the airport you are flying from: Marrakech Menara Airport is about twenty minutes from the medina, while Mohammed V Airport in Casablanca is about three hours away by motorway, so the departure time is set to give you plenty of time for check-in.

For an early flight, the transfer leaves directly from your riad after breakfast, or before it if necessary.