We just concluded 9 days in Morocco and its funky cool medinas. Pretty interesting trip! We planned this for over the Labor Day holiday instead of Memorial Day for reasons noted here. (That said, we still ended up staying in a dry riad in Fez and faced a paucity of wine and beers throughout our trip [not that it matters, of course . . .]).
Our itinerary across the country is outlined below:
Beginning at 11:00 on the map above and moving clockwise, our trip entailed the following:
A. Upon arrival in Casablanca, head directly to Fez (nothing to see in Casablanca since Bogart left . . .)
B. Spend 3 nights in Fez. We spent much of our time exploring the astonishing warren-like medina and all of the crazy stuff you encounter there:
C. On last day in Fez, take a day trip to the Roman ruins at Volubilis and the old royal city of Meknes:
D. The next morning, head to the Sahara and trek by camel through the desert; glamp overnight:
E. The next morning, ride our camels back out of the desert, and make it half way to Marrakech in the aftermath of some massive rains (which overflowed rivers and almost washed out the bridge below – we paid some enthusiastic local kids to push us across in order to keep our engine off, so it wouldn’t get flooded):
F. Continue our journey from Fez to Marrakech with a segment through the Atlas mountains, stopping at, among other places, the fortified Berber village (ksar) of Ait-Ben-Haddou – an amazing place (plus the site of an early scene in Gladiator and a bunch of other movies):
G. Finally, spend 3 nights in Marrakech:
We’ll be posting pics from each leg of the trip soon (but need to post the rest from the Biking the Balkans trip first . . .).
One last note: do NOT eat a freshly ground meat kefta sandwich from an open-air butcher in the Atlas Mountains!
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