London - August 26, 2005

Rock the Casbah

Guide to Morocco

Morocco — a place overflowing with goodness: spicy tagines, sweet mint tea, steamy hammams, and cinnamon cakes.

It’s all rather Moorish.

Start in a whitewashed riad in Marrakech. Make sure your hotel has a roof terrace where you can eat croissants and honey for breakfast and stargaze after dinner.

Stay at the historic art deco La Mamounia or the groovy Riad Lotus Perle. The Villa des Orangers is fancy-chic; the Jnane Mogador is charming.

Explore the main palace at dusk, then watch the snake charmers in Jamaa el Fnaa Square. (Hide your handbag: this place is heaving). Find beaded slippers, leather bags and spices, and do a John Galliano and buy up half the stock at La Maison du Kaftan Marocain (66 Rue Sidi; El Yamani).

When you get hungry, suck a hubbly bubbly at Ryad Tamsna (23 Derb Zanka Daika; +44-38-52-72), then take off your shoes and sit on the floor at Le Foundouk (55 Souk Hal Fassi, Médina; +44-37-81-90) for a lamb and prune tagine. Like it? Learn how to make it at the Kasbah Agafay cookery school. Work it off with barefoot dancing at Pacha.

It’s a great little country, so take a train out of town. Avoid Casablanca and Tangiers. They looked good when Bogart and Bergman drifted about them; now they’re hectic and overdeveloped. Head east to Kasbah Ennasra, a heavenly new hotel in the Sahara run by a nice man called Hassan. Under his careful guard you can ride a camel to dinner with Berber tribesman and sleep in a Bedouin tent.

Head west to the beach at Essaouira, a fishing port so laid-back, you’d fall asleep on its stone walls if not for the howling wind. Sit on the seafront for lunch and wait; you’ll be served fresh white bread, the reddest tomatoes you’ve ever seen and salty grilled fish from a fisherman’s boat.

If you can get so much as a square cushion at Hotel Villa Maroc or Heure Bleue Palais,  don’t ever leave. If you can’t, rent an oceanfront villa through Castles in the Sand or Villas of Morocco. Eat tagines at Taros (Place Mouley Hassan; +44-47-64-07) or book La Maison des Artistes for dinner by the sea. It’ll be noisy, windy and totally wild, but the food will be great and you’ll fall in love with the staff.

Like the sound of it?

You can always go back for moor.