Two Weeks in Morocco A Single Flowing Route from Tangier to Marrakesh
Morocco is a big country, roughly the size of France. Two weeks is the minimum time in which to see both the North and the South of the country, in which the different regions, north and south, mountain and desert, Atlantic and Mediterranean, start to connect into a single country.
This itinerary runs from Tangier in the north to Marrakesh in the south, covering the imperial cities of the north, the Atlantic coast, the crossing of the High Atlas, the pre-Saharan landscape of kasbahs and palm oases, and the great red city that gives the country its English name. It is not an exhaustive tour of Morocco. It is a journey with a shape and a logic, designed to leave you with a genuine understanding of the country
Fly into Tangier or Casablanca, or better still catch the ferry from Spain. Fly out of Marrakesh. Let me take you on a two week tour through the heartlands of Morocco.
KEY: A Tangier, B Tetouan, C Chefchaouen, D Fez, E Volubilis, F Mèknes, G Rabat, H Casablanca, I Essaouira, J Marrakesh
You can zoom in and out on the map and click on the various elements for more information.
Day 1 · Tangier — Arrival and Orientation
Arriving in Tangiers arrive by ferry from Tarifa or Algeciras in Spain, thirty-five minutes if you take the fast boat from Tarifa — is the best introduction to Morocco: the country appearing gradually on the horizon, the minaret of the medina visible above the port as you approach, the smell of the strait giving way to the smell of the city.
Alternatively if it better suits your plans you can Fly into Tangier Ibn Battouta airport
I would recommend staying in or immediately adjacent to the medina. Spend the first afternoon just walking, through the Petit Socco, up toward the kasbah, along the ramparts above the port.
The purpose of the first afternoon is to soak in the atmosphere and getting accustomed to the fact that you are in a very different place rather than actual sightseeing — letting your all your senses adjust to the stimuli that Morocco has to offer. Have dinner in the atmospheric medina rather than the ville nouvelle.
Tonight: Eat at a restaurant in the medina lanes rather than on the tourist-facing squares. Ask your accommodation for a recommendation, or just wander around. This principle of asking the locals, rather than consulting a guidebook, is one that I always follow and which will serve you well for the entire week.
Click here to read our detailed guide to Tangier
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Day 2 · Tangier — The City in Full
After Breakfast spend some time in the kasbah and visit the Dar el-Makhzen museum: the Roman mosaic collection, the carved ceilings, the view from the ramparts over the strait. By mid-morning head over to the American Legation Museum in the medina — the oldest American public property abroad, now a cultural centre with an excellent collection documenting the city’s literary history. Have lunch in the medina.
After lunch take a taxi west to Cap Spartel, the headland where the Atlantic meets the Mediterranean. Walk to the lighthouse, look at the two seas from above, then descend to the Caves of Hercules below the cliff. Return to the city in time for the late afternoon light on the strait from Café Hafa — the clifftop café that has been serving tea to musicians, writers and travellers since 1921. This is a great place to sit for an hour and watch the ferries crossing below. This is the finest thing you can do in Tangier, and it costs the price of a glass of tea.
Spend the evening in the Grand Socco and the Petit Socco for a last walk through the city at night, when the tourists have gone and the medina belongs to its residents rather than its visitors. I would eat again in The Medina, but you might like to try the Ville Nouvelle.
Day 3 · Tétouan — The Overlooked City, then South to Chefchaouen
Today I recommend an early start from Tangier. Take the bus or a grand taxi to Tétouan — an hour south and east through the Rif foothills. Tétouan is a half-day stop on this itinerary, which is not enough to do it full justice but is enough to understand why it deserves its own entry in this guide. The big draws are the medina — a UNESCO World Heritage Site that almost no tourists visit and the Andalusian architecture of the residential quarters, built by the Spanish Ensanche during the Protectorate years. Unfortunately on this tight schedule there is only time to spend two to three hours here before continuing south. But if you have the time you could easily turn Tétouan into an overnight stop
Click here to read our detailed guide to Tétouan
After lunch in Tétouan, take a CTM bus or grand taxi south to Chefchaouen. The journey takes around two hours, through the Rif Mountains, the road climbing through cedar forest and terraced hillsides. I would strongly recommend checking into a riad inside the medina —the city at night, when the day visitors have gone, is a different and better place, and you only experience it if you are sleeping inside the walls.
Aim to arrive in Chefchaouen, mid afternoon, the perfect time to walk up to the Spanish mosque on the ridge above the city. The path is clear, the climb takes forty minutes, and the view over the blue rooftops as the sun descends is one of the genuinely memorable sights of a Moroccan journey. Time it for an hour before sunset and you will have the light exactly right.
Day 4 · Chefchaouen , then South to Fez
Spend the morning in the medina: the Plaza Uta el-Hammam and the kasbah garden first, then simply walk. The medina of Chefchaouen is small enough to explore fully in a morning without rushing, just walk slowly, take the lanes that look interesting and allow the colour and the calm to do their work. The Ras el-Maa spring at the eastern edge of the medina, where the mountain water runs through stone channels, is worth finding.
After lunch it’s time to head off to Fez, it takes around 3 hours by bus or grand taxi. This time it might be better to catch a grand taxi as the buses all tend to come from somewhere else and are often full when they arrive in Chefchaouen.
Try to arrive in Fez by early evening. Again I would strongly recommend checking into a riad in the medina — Fès el-Bali rather than the ville nouvelle. Your first evening is for orientation: a walk through the lanes nearest your riad, have dinner close by, and you’re probably ready for an early night.
Day 5 · Fez — The Medina
Fez or Fès is medieval city, with an amazing medina that is the largest in the world, it demands at least two full days, and even that is an underestimate, I could easily spend an extra day here.
On the first day, explore Fès el Bali (the medina) ideally with a guide — this is the one city in Morocco where the argument for hiring a good local guide makes a lot of sense. The lanes of Fès el-Bali number over nine thousand; without a guide who knows the city, you will spend significant time navigating rather than seeing. But if you don’t have a guide do make sure that you have a smart phone equipped with a mapping app, without it you could get lost for days!
Click here to read our detailed guide to Fez
I would start in the morning at Bab Boujloud — the Blue Gate and proceed down Talaa Kebira to the Bou Inania Medersa. Allow at least forty minutes here: the carved stucco, the cedarwood screens, the marble courtyard with its central basin are among the finest examples of Merinid architecture in existence and deserve careful attention. Continue through the commercial souks — the leather workers, the dyers, the weavers — to the infamous Chouara Tannery, you can usually smell it before you come across it. View it from the terrace of one of the surrounding leather shops.
Have lunch in Fès el Bali and start the afternoon at the Al-Attarine Medersa, immediately adjacent to the Al-Qarawiyyin mosque. The mosque itself is closed to non-Muslims, but the medersa’s rooftop gives a rare glimpse into the mosque’s courtyard. Then proceed to the Seffarine square — the coppersmiths’ quarter, where the hammering has continued since the medieval period — and the shrine of Moulay Idriss II.
In the evening I would eat in or around the medina, try the local Fassi food. I would suggest ordering pastilla, the layered pie of pigeon (or increasingly chicken), egg, almonds and spices, encased in warka pastry as fine as tissue paper, dusted with icing sugar and cinnamon. The combination sounds improbable and tastes extraordinary. Any riad or restaurant serious about Fassi cuisine will serve a version; the best versions take a day to prepare.
Click here to read our guide to Moroccan Food
Harira — the thick, tomato-based soup with lentils and chickpeas — is another Fassi staple, and makes a great starter, it is served throughout the medina and at its best in the small restaurants around the Rcif quarter. Mrouzia — lamb slow-cooked with almonds, raisins and spice in a honey-sweetened sauce — is another firm favourite and a dish that could only have come from this culinary tradition: patient, complex, the kind of cooking that reflects centuries of refinement.
Day 6 · Fez — Depth and Digression
The second day in Fez is for exploring Fès el Bali, letting yourself get lost in the medina ( as long as you have your smart phone to show you the way out should you need it) rather than a prescribed route.
The medina has nine thousand lanes; you have seen perhaps thirty. Go back to the places that stayed with you from yesterday. Find the neighbourhood outside the main tourist circuit — the residential quartiers of the Andalusian bank, quieter and less visited than the Kairouani side — and explore.
I would begin the morning at the Merinid tombs on the hilltop above the medina — the ruins of the royal necropolis are reached by a path behind the Borj Nord fortress. The ruins themselves are modest, but the view over the medina below is the best available perspective on the scale and density of Fès el-Bali. The tiled rooftops, the minarets, the smoke from the hammam chimneys: a scene that hasn’t changed for six hundred years.
Spend the afternoon exploring the medina at your own pace. If there is a workshop, a craft quarter or a street that interested you yesterday and that you passed through too quickly, return to it. If the tanneries were what stayed with you, go back at a different time of day and in different light. If a shopkeeper invited you to tea yesterday and you were in too much of a hurry return and see him today, he’ll be delighted to see you!.
Day 7 · Meknès and Volubilis
Meknès is sixty kilometres from Fez — forty minutes by train or taxi. Leave Fez early and arrive in Meknès by mid-morning. Check into a riad in the medina.
I would then head upto Volubilis, thirty kilometres north of Meknès, it is the best-preserved Roman city in Morocco, occupying a bowl of agricultural land with the Atlas visible on the southern horizon. Go as early as possible, ideally before the tour buses from Fez arrive. The mosaics — still in situ on the floors of the ruined villas — are extraordinary, and the triumphal arch, the capitol and the forum give sufficient sense of the city’s original scale to make the imagination do the rest. Two hours here is enough, but three is better.
Return to Meknès for the afternoon, see the Bab Mansour gate (at its best in afternoon light), the Mausoleum of Moulay Ismail, the Heri es-Souani granaries and the Agdal basin. The evening food market in the Place el-Hedim is the ideal place to enjoy North Morrocan cusine: unpretentious, local, completely genuine. Snails, Harira & Merguez are popular choices.
Day 8 · Rabat
After breakfast catch the train from Meknès to Rabat: one and a half hours. The Moroccan capital is systematically undervisited and has a lot to offer. In the morning visit the Hassan Tower and the Mausoleum of Mohammed V — the great incomplete minaret and the finest example of contemporary Moroccan craft in the country.
After lunch I would suggest visiting the Kasbah of the Oudayas above the river mouth, the Andalusian Garden & stop for a refreshing drink at the Café Maure with its view over the Atlantic.
Late in the afternoon head off to the Chellah necropolis — the Roman ruins and Merinid tombs where storks have nested on the towers for generations, and where the combination of antiquity and wildness is unlike anything else in Morocco.
Click here to read our detailed guide to Rabat
Stay overnight in Rabat, or take the train south to Casablanca if Casablanca interests you more than a night in the capital.
Day 9 · Casablanca — then Essaouira
Today we are spending the morning in Casablanca. The first thing to say about Casablanca is that it has nothing to do with the film. The city’s global name recognition comes entirely from a work of fiction, and the actual Casablanca — Morocco’s largest city, its economic capital, its primary port, the home of a third of its industrial output — is a very different proposition from the cinematic version.
Which is not to say it is uninteresting. Casablanca is the most modern city in Morocco, the most economically significant, and in some ways the most revealing
Visit the Hassan II mosque (to fully understand I would recommend the guided tour), then wander around the Art Deco district of the city centre, the Place Mohammed V & the Boulevard Mohammed V, not forgetting the medina.
Lunch down at one of the cafes or seafood restaurants overlooking the sea is to be recommended.
Click here to read our detailed guide to Casablanca
After you have finished looking around take the afternoon bus south to Essaouira (350km) from the main Casablanca bus station. But check the bus times and don’t leave it too late as it’s 6.5 hour journey on a comfy modern bus. You should arrive Essaouira by early evening. Check into a riad in the medina.
Day 10· Essaouira
Essaouira is a different Morocco entirely from the cities of the North. Small and intimate. A few days in Essaouira is a chance to recharge your batteries after a busy few days.
After breakfast in your riad explore the medina, get a feel of the place. Make your way down to the port by late morning. The fishing boats are in by now, the fish market is operating, and the stalls along the quay are grilling the morning’s catch. This is where to eat lunch: choose your fish from the display, watch it go over the charcoal, eat it at a tin table with bread and harissa. The prawns are consistently good. So are the sardines. It will cost very little and taste of the sea and the day.
Click here to read our detailed guide to Essaouira
After lunch walk the skala — the sea bastion — with its bronze cannons pointing at the Atlantic and the thuya woodworking workshops in the chambers below. The view of the medina from the ramparts and the offshore islands visible through the sea haze is very atmospheric. Then go back and explore the medina itself: the main commercial street, the gallery quarter (the standard of the galleries in Essaouira is the highest of any Moroccan city outside the major imperial cities), the mellah — the old Jewish quarter — which still carries the architectural character of the Sephardic community that made the city’s Atlantic trade for two centuries.
Evening in Essaouira has a particular quality — the wind drops as the sun goes down, the temperature cools, the medina lanes belong to the people who live in them. Find yourself a good fish restaurant and enjoy the Moroccan seafood.
Day 11 · Essaouira — The Wind and the Coast
A full second day in Essaouira. I would start early, straight after breakfast, and head to the beach — the wide Atlantic strand to the south of the city, it is best before the fresh Alizé wind rises around noon. The water is cold by Mediterranean standards; the beach is magnificent, wide expanses of sand as far as the eye can see.
I like to walk along the beach, past the old ruined place lost amongst the dunes, to the village of Diabat, where Jimi Hendrix and other hippies came to avoid the Vietnam war draft in the last 1960’s. Diabat itself in a quiet place although there is a Jimi Hendrix guesthouse where you can grab a drink and have a rest. The walk back along the road is a lot quicker than the walk out along the beach. This walk is all about the journey rather than the destination.
I would suggest lunch back in the medina, then spend the afternoon exploring the medina again at your own pace, stopping for a mint tea and spending time people watching. The souks here are more relaxed and generally have a higher quality of goods than those in Marrakesh: the argan oil is local and genuine, the woven textiles are Rif and Souss traditions, the thuya marquetry is made in workshops you can watch. The Gnawa music that appears in the squares and tea houses is the real tradition, not a tourist performance — the same tradition that influenced Jimi Hendrix when he came through in 1969.
Head the ramparts at sunset. You won’t be alone, sunset here is a major attraction, for a very good reason. There is a spot on the northern end of the skala where the light falls on the ocean and the old Portuguese fortifications simultaneously, and the effect is one of those moments where the beauty of a place stops being backdrop and becomes the whole point. It is hard to take a bad photograph.
Day 12 · Marrakesh — Arrival
After breakfast catch the morning bus to Marrakesh( three hours). I would recommend booking into a Riad in the medina then having a late lunch at a café overlooking the Djemaa el-Fna and watch the juice sellers, the henna women, the snake charmers in the square. Spend the afternoon wandering through the souks and come back to the Djemaa el-Fna for dinner again in the evening, when the food stalls assemble and the gnawa musicians begin. The two visits to the same square in the same day are utterly different, during the day it is quite sedate, but at night it really comes alive.
Day 13 · Marrakesh Sightseeing
On your second day in Marrakesh, now you have your bearings, I would suggest visiting the sites, the souks and the monuments.
My first stop would be the dyers’ souk — a lane strung with hanks of freshly dyed wool in shades of saffron, crimson and indigo, hung between the buildings to dry. If you find the dyers’ souk — and finding it involves taking a small lane that feels like you are going the wrong way, but keep going — stop and look up. The colours against the pale walls and the strip of sky above is one of the most photogenic scenes in the medina.
The next unmissable sight is the Medersa Ben Youssef, the ancient Islamic theological college which is among the finest Islamic interiors in Africa and should not be rushed. It has been restored in the last few years and is magnificient.
After a late lunch, I would suggest visiting atmospheric palaces; the Bahia Palace (painted ceilings of extraordinary quality) and the El Badi Palace ruins (the storks on the battlements, the sense of magnificent loss).
Finish the afternoon at the Saadian Tombs, discovered behind a wall in 1917 and preserved in the condition in which they were sealed: a jewel-box of carved marble and painted stucco containing the remains of the Saadian dynasty.
Marrakesh eating: I would suggest eating at a stall in the Djema el-Fna one eveing to experience the atmosphere and enjoy dinner at one of the restaurants overlooking the square for your second evening.
For lunch there are plenty of atmospheric places in the medina, although after the very generous Riad breakfasts, you may not be that hungry. There are also plenty of places to rest and enjoy a refreshing mint tea
Days 14 · Marrakesh – The Gardens
I would start the morning by catching a taxi to my favourite place in Marrakesh, indeed one of my favourite places in the World, Les Jardins des Majorelles. If you can, be there when it opens, first thing, before the crowds arrive. The cobalt blue against the bougainvillaea, the sound of the birds, the sheer exoticism is magical in the quiet of the early morning, especially without the crowds. Don’t forget to visit the Berber museum in Majorelle’s old studio that most visitors walk past.
I would stay for a couple of hours, there is a lovely, although rather pricey, café on site.
Then head to the Menara Gardens for a slower, more peaceful experience. It’s a vast olive grove — over a hundred hectares — surrounding a large reflective pool fed by an underground khettara system bringing water from the Atlas Mountains twelve kilometres away. The pool has existed in some form since the twelfth century; the pavilion at its edge was restored in the nineteenth.
These gardens were once the Sultan’s gardens but now they are popular with local Marrakshi families come on Friday afternoons to picnic and sit and do very little. The Atlas reflected in the still water on a clear morning is beautiful.
If it’s the weekend I would suggest that you make time to visit the Agdal Gardens. It is larger, older, and even less visited than the Menera Gardens. Four kilometres long, walled, planted with olive, fig, pomegranate and citrus of considerable antiquity, fed by the same khettara system it is open only at weekends.
It’s two large basins — the Grand Bassin and the Dar el-Hana — were used for royal boating parties and practical irrigation simultaneously, which tells you something about Moroccan pragmatism. On a Friday afternoon with the gates open and almost no one else present, the Agdal has a quality of silence and timelessness that the more celebrated gardens, with their entrance queues and audio guides, simply cannot match. Go there and enjoy the escape from the city.
In the evening I would suggest spending your last evening in Marrakesh in a restaurant overlooking the Djemma el-Fna, enjoying the food, the view and reflecting on your Morrocan experience.
Practical Notes — Two Weeks
The Ferry option from Tarifa or Algeciras in Spain to Tangier port is in my opinon the best way to start your Morrocan journey. Otherwise fly into: Tangier Ibn Battouta (TNG) or Casablanca Mohammed V (CMN) then catch the train north to start in Tangier.
Fly out of: Marrakesh (RAK).
Getting around:
Grand taxis between Tangier, Chefchaouen and Tétouan. Hired car or bus Tétouan to Fez. Train for Fez–Meknès–Rabat–Casablanca (Morocco’s rail network is excellent on this corridor — clean, punctual, comfortable, inexpensive). Bus for Casablanca–Essaouira and Essaouira–Marrakesh
Best season:
April–May and September–October. The Rif Mountains are beautiful in spring when the hillsides are green and the wildflowers are out. Avoid July and August in Fez & Marrakesh which is genuinely hot and crowded.
Accommodation:
I would always strongly recommend staying in a Riad for an authentic and atmospheric visit. Specifically I would recommend;
Tangier; Hotel or small guesthouse in medina or kasbah quarter.
Chefchaouen; Riad inside the medina walls.
Fez; Riad in the Fès el-Bali medina.
Meknès; Riad or small guesthouse inside the medina walls,
Rabat / Casablanca; Hotel or Guesthouse, it is probably worth not booking this in advance as you may change your mind about which city you wish to stay in.
Essaouira & Marrakesh; Riad or small guesthouse inside the medina walls
Pacing:
This is a full two weeks with few rest days built in. If you find a place you want to stay longer — Fez and Essaouira are the most likely candidates — reduce the Casablanca morning to a few hours or compress the Chefchaouen–Tétouan section. The itinerary is a framework, not a timetable.
Click here to read our practical tips for Independent Travellers to Morocco
Click here to read our Morocco Food Guide
Two-week tip: Book the riads in Fez and Marrakesh in advance, especially in peak season. The best ones fill quickly. For everything else — the grand taxis, the buses, the smaller guesthouses — you can arrange as you go, and the flexibility this gives you is worth more than the marginal security of having everything pre-booked.