8 Days in Morocco: Three Nights in Marrakech, the Sahara, and Fes

A licensed local guide takes you through the medina on foot, which is the only sensible way to see it: the Koutoubia minaret, the painted ceilings and courtyards of the Bahia Palace, the Saadian Tombs that were sealed for two centuries, and the cool blue-green paths of the Jardin Majorelle. Then the souks. In the late afternoon you drive forty minutes out to the Agafay, a stony desert plateau where dinner is served under the stars with live music while the High Atlas goes to silhouette behind you.

West across the Chichaoua plain and through groves of ancient argan trees, where goats really do stand in the branches, to the Atlantic. Essaouira is a fortified port with ramparts open straight into the wind, a harbour full of blue boats and gulls, and a medina of white walls and blue shutters small enough to walk in an afternoon. The road back crosses the plains as the light goes, and you sleep in the same riad.

A gentler day, and deliberately short. South into the foothills of the High Atlas to the Ourika Valley, where the river runs between terraced villages and the road narrows as it climbs. You visit a Berber family home - tea, bread, a look at how a house is actually built here - and continue to Setti Fatma, where a footpath climbs beside a chain of waterfalls beneath the peaks. Back in Marrakech by the afternoon for the third and last night.

The day the trip changes. East out of Marrakech and up into the High Atlas over the Tizi n Tichka pass at 2,260 metres, with the folded valleys opening below at every switchback. On the far side a local guide walks you through Ait Ben Haddou, the UNESCO-listed earthen ksar whose towers and granaries have stood in for a dozen other countries on film. Then Ouarzazate and Kasbah Taourirt, and east along the Valley of a Thousand Kasbahs to Boumalne Dades at the mouth of the gorge.

The long day, and the best one. First up into the Dades Gorge for the switchback viewpoints and the rock formations locals call monkey fingers. Then east to the Todgha Gorge, where limestone walls rise three hundred metres on either side of a river narrow enough to step across and the sky becomes a sliver overhead. Through Tinghir and its palm oasis, then the long run to Erfoud and the sand. At Merzouga camels carry you into the Erg Chebbi dunes for sunset, and the night is spent at a camp with dinner and music around a fire.

Rise before dawn for the sunrise, which is the reason to sleep out here: the light crosses the erg in about ten minutes and there is no sound at all. Then north through Erfoud and Errachidia into the Ziz Valley, where the cliff road runs high above a palm grove that stretches to the horizon - one of the great oases of Morocco. The day ends in Midelt, a quiet plateau town at the foot of the eastern High Atlas.

Climb north into the Middle Atlas. The cedar forest above Azrou comes first, where Barbary macaques come down to the roadside among trees several centuries old, then Ifrane, a town of pitched roofs and manicured gardens that looks like it was lifted out of the Alps - a strange sight three days after the Sahara. Fes arrives in the afternoon, with time to walk the edges of the medina before dinner.

A private transfer from your riad to the airport for your flight. If you are flying out of Casablanca, Tangier, Marrakech or Agadir instead, we drive you there and the transfer is included.