About This Experience

Where the Ocean
Meets Morocco

The Atlantic coast of Morocco stretches for over 2,500 kilometres from the Strait of Gibraltar all the way to the edge of the Sahara. It is a different Morocco from the medinas and the mountains, wilder, more open, shaped by the force of the ocean and centuries of maritime and trading history. The light on the Atlantic coast is different too: cleaner and cooler than the light of the interior, the colours are bleached and vivid at the same time, and the ocean wind makes everything feel awake.

Essaouira is a walled city of extraordinary beauty. The Portuguese built the ramparts in the 18th century and the medina behind them has barely changed since. The blue fishing boats in the harbour, the argan oil pressing rooms in the lanes, the wood carvers in the souk who work the thuya root into objects of great delicacy, all of this is still here and still working. We walk the ramparts at dawn when the only sound is the ocean crashing below and the gulls calling above the walls.

In Rabat we explore the Oudaias Kasbah above the estuary where the Bou Regreg river meets the Atlantic, the Hassan Tower, the Mausoleum of Mohammed V and the UNESCO-listed medina. In Casablanca we arrange an interior visit of the Hassan II Mosque, one of the largest religious buildings on earth, built over the ocean on a foundation of reinforced concrete and marble that took 35,000 craftspeople six years to complete. Tangier in the north connects three continents and has one of the most dramatic positions of any city in the world.