Imperial Cities and the Sahara

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1. Day1 Athens to Casablanca: the road beginsAthens → Casablanca

   Fly from Athens to Casablanca on a scheduled flight with one connection. Your Greek coordinator welcomes you and the transfer takes you to the hotel in Morocco's great economic capital, facing the Atlantic. A welcome dinner and a first night's rest before a full week of roads, medinas and desert.

   • Flight
   • Dinner
2. Day2 Hassan II Mosque, Rabat and the blue cityCasablanca → Rabat → Chefchaouen

   In the morning, the Hassan II Mosque, partly built over the waters of the Atlantic, with a minaret over 200 metres tall. Then Rabat, the capital: the Hassan Tower, the royal mausoleum and the white-and-blue lanes of the Kasbah of the Udayas. In the afternoon the road climbs into the Rif mountains to Chefchaouen, where the blue walls shift in tone as the sun goes down.

   • Coach
   • Breakfast · Dinner
3. Day3 Chefchaouen, Volubilis, Meknes and arrival in FezChefchaouen → Volubilis → Meknes → Fez

   A morning walk through the medina of Chefchaouen, among blue alleys, pots of geraniums and weavers' shops. The road then descends inland: Volubilis, the Roman city with its mosaics and columns among olive groves, and Meknes, with the monumental Bab Mansour gate. You reach Fez in the evening, after a long day on the road.

   • Coach
   • Breakfast · Dinner
4. Day4 Fez medina and the tanneriesFez

   A day on foot in the medina of Fez el-Bali, a maze of alleys where donkeys laden with goods still pass. Madrasas decorated with zellige tilework and cedar wood, copper and ceramic workshops, the entrance to the al-Qarawiyyin mosque-university, founded in 859, and, from a terrace, the tanneries, whose dye vats form a mosaic of colour. Lunch of local specialities in the medina.

   • On foot
   • Breakfast · Lunch · Dinner
5. Day5 From the Atlas to the dunes of MerzougaFez → Ifrane → Merzouga

   Head south through the Middle Atlas: Ifrane with its Alpine-style roofs, cedar forests where Barbary macaques live, then high plateaus, the palm oases of the Ziz valley and an ever more arid landscape. In the late afternoon you mount a camel and ride to the camp among the dunes as the Sahara turns pink. Dinner and a night in a tent.

   • Coach
   • Breakfast · Dinner
6. Day6 Sunrise on the dunes and the Todra GorgesMerzouga → Todra Gorges → Ouarzazate

   At dawn you climb the highest dunes to watch the sun rise over the Sahara, camel caravans stretching their shadows across the sand. After breakfast the road west reaches the Todra Gorges, rock walls over a hundred metres high with a stream running between palms. The journey continues to Ouarzazate, past mud-brick kasbahs and oases.

   • Coach
   • Breakfast · Dinner
7. Day7 Aït Benhaddou, the High Atlas and MarrakechOuarzazate → Aït Benhaddou → Marrakech

   A morning at Aït Benhaddou, the ochre mud-brick fortified village rising above the river, a UNESCO site and a favourite film location. Then across the High Atlas, over a pass above two thousand metres, with hairpin bends and Berber villages clinging to the slopes. In Marrakech, at dusk, Jemaa el-Fnaa square fills with smoke, music and grill stalls: dinner is free. A night in a riad.

   • Coach
   • Breakfast · Lunch
8. Day8 Marrakech souks and flight homeMarrakech → Athens

   A last morning in the medina: the maze of souks with lanterns, spices, slippers and textiles, the Koutoubia minaret above the rooftops and a quiet corner in a riad courtyard, with its fountain and orange trees. Depending on the flight time, there is free time for last purchases before the transfer to the airport and the flight home to Athens.

   • Flight
   • Breakfast