Early evening in Rabat and the setting sun is turning the colour of the mandarins that are ripening on trees all around the city.
Beneath the lookout point of the Unesco-listed Kasbah of Udaias, a dozen surfers are scanning the sea for their next break. Nearby, on the Corniche that clings to the edges of the Bou Regreg River, families, friends and couples huddle together, talking and walking in the warm evening air.
As dusk redraws the sky pomegranate pink, I realise that I wasn’t expecting the capital of Morocco to be like this. I had pictured a busy, business-focused city. Instead, I’ve found myself in a place where the pace is tempered.
Some of the sights I had seen earlier in the day had surprised me, too. While the 13th-century medina – a warren of leather, ceramic and textile souks – and the Mausoleum of Mohammed V (the last sultan and first king of Morocco until his death in 1961), with its lantern-like dome and zellige tiling, are intrinsically Moroccan, there are other parts of the city that feel more Mediterranean.
The long tree-lined boulevard that leads up to Dar al-Makhzen, official residence of King Mohammed VI, puts me in mind of the Champs-Élysées in Paris, while the centre of the Kasbah, with its whitewashed buildings, blue shuttered windows, and primary coloured plant pots makes me think of Mykonos’s old town.
The Unesco-listed Kasbah of the Oudaias sits at the mouth of the Bou Regreg river and dates to the 12th century, its monumental gates and walls still intact. An Andalucian garden bursting with citrus trees and bougainvillea was constructed during the French Protectorate in the first half of the 20th century. Today, this city-within-a-city is today home to around 2,000 residents, many of whom still make use of a communal bread oven, as well as the Kasbah’s ancient mosque.
In many ways, this purging of preconceptions is the point of the trip I’m on. I’m visiting Morocco on an overland tour of a trio of imperial cities with tour operator Tui. The itinerary takes travellers beyond better-known Marrakech to places that are much less explored by British holidaymakers.
Morocco has seen the biggest increase in flights from the UK in recent years. Aviation analytics firm Cirium has noted a jump of just under 43 per cent this month compared to June 2023, and more than 74 per cent compared to 2019.
Bolstering frequent flights to Marrakech, are new route launches to Ouarzazate between the Atlas Mountains and Sahara, as well as Casablanca and Agadir. The Moroccan government has committed to investing more than 6bn Dirhams (£475m) to boost the country’s tourism economy over the next two years, when it hopes to attract 17.5 million tourists per year, up from 13 million before the pandemic. Tourist receipts are also helping the country recover from last September’s devastating earthquake.
Running round-trip from Marrakech, my itinerary also takes in Casablanca and the lesser-known city of Beni Mellal. Edging up to the Atlantic Ocean, Casablanca is a yawning port city of multi-storey whitewashed buildings. Art Deco architecture proliferated here during the French Protectorate, between 1912 and 1956, adding curves and geometric designs to what feels like every second structure. In among the clean lines is the vernacular modernist architecture that flourished here from the 50s under the Gamma collective of architects, while traditional Moroccan design is preserved within the Medina.
Not far from the docks, the Hassan II Mosque is a feat of engineering. Completed in 1993, in a coastal area of the city that was previously little more than the bedrock and brine of the Atlantic Ocean, the structure was born of more than 50 million hours of manpower. Its minaret is 60 storeys tall while its footprint is 22 acres (89,030 square metres). I feel like a Lilliputian as I approach one of the largest mosques on the continent.
Inside, the craftsmanship is intricate. I take off my shoes and pad quietly around, taking in the soaring marble columns, glinting glass chandeliers, and meticulous mosaic work as the cool of the marble floor infuses into my feet.
The city’s Medina is the Yin to the mosque’s Yang. Brightly coloured stalls line the cat’s cradle of streets to the clamour of touting, bargaining and moped engines. I take a break at Dar El Kaid, a traditional restaurant inside a renovated riad, where dishes include taktouka (a smoky tomato and pepper dip), zaalouk (an untuous eggplant dip), and a fish tagine that is tangy with parsley.
For all the history here, I confess that one of my favourite places in the city is Rick’s Café. Developed in 2004 by a former American diplomat who wanted to replicate the sets from the 1942 Hollywood-filmed movie Casablanca, the tastefully recreated bar is all high ceilings, polished wood, brass, and leather. I take a seat at the marble-topped bar while the waistcoated barman shakes me up an impeccable Gin Rickey. “Here’s looking at you kid,” I say in my head as I take my first tangy sip.
Around two and-a-half hours’ drive south-east from Casablanca, is Beni Mellal, in north-central Morocco. The castle-crowned city is known for its springs and olive oil. The landscape around it is just as noteworthy, chequered green with cereal and vegetable fields and olive tree groves.
Seeing the countryside of Morocco’s hinterland is one of the advantages of touring by road. The view from the minibus window shifts from rusty red plains to the vertiginous valleys of the High Atlas Mountains where the calligraphic roads curl through mountainscapes stubbled with cork, willow and carob trees, and where, my tour guide Abdullah tells me, wild lions once roamed.
On the drive back to Marrakech, I make a diversion to the Ouzoud Waterfalls. One of the tallest in Africa, Ouzoud cascades 100m into a gorge below. A 600-step staircase leads down to the base of the falls and, walking down, I see the light catching the water at just the right angle to cast a rainbow across the spray.
Restaurants and cafes surround the waterfall, and I find a table at Izargan. Looking out over the lip of the falls, the water occasionally spritzing my face in the wind, I enjoy a pyramid of couscous with lemon-laced chicken tagine, before journeying back to Marrakech.
From the balcony of my room at the Tui Blue Medina Gardens hotel I can see the Koutoubia Mosque and the blush-coloured buildings of the medina in the background. I sit in my hot tub as the sunset starts to turn the sky the gold of Moroccan mint tea and, reminded of the sunset over Rabat, I can’t quite believe how much of Morocco it’s possible to see in a single week when you’re willing to switch up a city break for a country tour.
The writer travelled with Tui, which offers an 11-night multi-centre holiday including the seven-night half-board Imperial Cities of Morocco tour and a four-night all-inclusive stay at the Tui Blue Medina Gardens, with flights departing Manchester, from £1,173pp.