Essaouira

Essaouira: Morocco's Windswept Atlantic Gem

Two and a half hours west of Marrakech, where the Atlas foothills give way to argan groves and then to open ocean, sits Essaouira. Where the imperial cities are dense and intense, Essaouira is low-slung, salt-washed and unhurried — a walled fishing town of white houses and blue shutters, wide skies, and a beach that runs for miles. It has long drawn artists, surfers and travellers looking to slow down, and it makes a natural coastal counterpoint on a wider Morocco tour.

A Fortified Medina by the Sea

Essaouira's medina is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and unusually for Morocco it was planned rather than grown: in the 1760s Sultan Sidi Mohammed ben Abdallah commissioned the French engineer Théodore Cornut to lay out a fortified port on the site of old Mogador, with straight main streets, European-style bastions and a grid you can actually navigate. The Skala de la Ville, a long sea rampart lined with rows of bronze cannons, looks straight out over the breaking waves; below it, workshops of thuya-wood craftsmen are built into the old gun rooms. Arched gates — Bab Marrakech, Bab Doukkala — mark the edges of the old town, and the former Jewish quarter, the Mellah, sits within the walls.

The Wind City of Africa

The trade winds that give Essaouira its nickname — the alizés — blow hard and steady across the bay for much of the year, especially in spring and summer. That makes the town one of the world's better-known windsurfing and kitesurfing spots, with schools and rental centres along the southern end of the beach and a big, forgiving bay to learn in. Even if you never touch a board, the wind shapes the place: it keeps the summers mild when Marrakech is at its hottest, and it fills the long beach with kites on a clear afternoon.

The Working Fishing Port

Essaouira's harbour is not a marina — it is a busy commercial fishing port, and one of the most photographed corners of Morocco. Wooden boats painted the same cobalt blue crowd the quay, gulls wheel overhead, nets are mended on the dock, and the day's catch — sardines, sea bream, conger eel, crab — is auctioned and grilled on the spot at simple stalls. The Îles Purpuraires just offshore, including the Île de Mogador, are a protected reserve and a nesting site for Eleonora's falcon.

Arts, Music and Craft

For its size Essaouira has an outsized creative life. It is the centre of Morocco's thuya-wood marquetry, and the medina is full of small galleries and studios. The region is also argan country, and women's cooperatives on the road in from Marrakech press the oil by hand. Every June the town fills for the Gnaoua World Music Festival, a huge free celebration of the trance music brought to Morocco by sub-Saharan communities. Filmmakers have long used the ramparts and port as a backdrop — from Orson Welles's Othello to Kingdom of Heaven and, more recently, as the slaver city of Astapor in Game of Thrones.

Visiting Essaouira on a Guided Tour

Essaouira works both as a long day trip from Marrakech and, better, as a one- or two-night stop that lets you feel the town empty out in the evening. Many of our imperial-city and coastal itineraries include it, and any private tour can be routed through Essaouira on the way to or from Marrakech. Tell us how much beach time you want and we will build it in.