Ksar El Kabbaba

Morocco Express

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Northern Circuit of Morocco

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A journey around Morocco's lesser-visited northern highlights.

10 days

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Imperial Cities by Rail

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Ride the rails on a journey through Morocco’s historic heart.

12 days

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10 days

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14 days

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Journey to the Sahara

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Luxury desert camps, Berber culture, and endless landscapes.

10 days

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Quirky excursions

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Kasbah Ait Ben Haddou

With more film credits than most Oscar winners, stretching back as far as Lawrence Of Arabia in 1962, and right up to the present day with Son Of God and Game Of Thrones, Ait Ben Haddou is one of the most iconic destinations in Morocco. The gorgeous red-mud pisé walls of this ksar (fortified village) and kasbah (fort) seem to rise organically out of the hillside, leading down to a palm-fringed river bed. Thanks to a UNESCO grant, the ksar is now inhabited again, meaning that the endless cycle of repairing the walls after each rainy season has been taken up again. Ait Ben Haddou looks as wonderful as ever and wandering through the narrow streets is genuinely like walking back in time.

Skoura

As you head off down the Dades Valley, towards the Sahara, Skoura is one of the biggest settlements you’ll encounter, a short way outside Ouarzazate (you may even find yourself staying here in a wonderful restored kasbah). An impossible number of palm trees seem to be pressed into the elbow of the confluence of two rivers. Narrow pathways twist amongst the trees, linking kasbahs and ksour (fortified villages). Kasbah Amridil is the most impressive, and is visible from the road; it vies with Ait Ben Haddou for the most famous Moroccan kasbah (a battle it probably wins as it’s featured on a bank note, not a claim Ait Ben Haddou can compete with!). Depending on whether you’re staying locally or just passing through, you can make a brief stop to photograph and admire, or take your time and get lost amidst the palm trees and crumbling fortifications that stretch for several kilometres.

Telouet and the Glaoui Valley

The Ounila Valley linking Telouet and Ait Ben Haddou was the heartland of the Glaoui clan, a local tribe used by the French to pacify the south of Morocco and who came to be hugely powerful as a consequence. Madani and T’hami El Glaoui were both born in Telouet and enough remains of the vast kasbah complex they built there to give you an idea of the scale of their ambition and egos. A dirt road leads south along the Ounila Valley past endless crumbling kasbahs and fortified villages; seeing their ruin today it’s hard to imagine that this is where half of Morocco was effectively ruled from. You emerge from the picturesque valley past the Kasbah of Tamdhakht, a nice appetizer before the main course of Kasbah Ait Ben Haddou.

Dades Valley & Todra Gorge

Carving away from the main road and up into the mountains of the High Atlas, the Dades Gorge runs through knobbly, striated bands of rock that have been carved and smoothed by centuries of wind and water. Villages cling to steep hillsides, usually presided over by a crumbling kasbah, and palm plantations and orchards tenaciously colonise any flat space. As you press deeper into the gorge you reach the most famous section, a furiously zigzagging stretch of hairpins. For those with the time and a love of dramatic scenery, heading over here and linking up with the Todra Gorge to drive back down to the main road is incredibly rewarding. Rising in a similar part of the Atlas to the Dades, the Todra river carves its way out of the mountains via a spectacular gorge and then flows eastwards towards the Sahara. Near the Todra Gorge, the village of Tineghir is sculpted along the edge of the valley with views out over the plantations and fields of the valley floor; it’s a mixture of more modern buildings (still to an identifiably traditional design) and older kasbahs, a pleasing prospect. Tineghir is one of the better options for exploring the region and breaking the journey to and from the sand dunes of the Erg Chebbi.