The wind at Essaouira is called the alizés, and it blows almost every day. Northeasterly trade winds funnel down the Atlantic coast, accelerate around the headland, and arrive at the bay hard and steady from spring through autumn.
It has two consequences. The first is that Essaouira is a windsurfing and kitesurfing town of international standing, with reliable conditions when most of the Mediterranean is flat. The second is that the town stays cool — the coast here sits in the low twenties through a summer when Marrakech, three hours inland, is regularly above forty. Moroccans have used it as a summer escape for exactly that reason for generations.
Locals call the wind the alizé and they also call it, with feeling, the taghart.
A medina laid out on a grid
Essaouira's medina is unlike the others. In the 1760s the sultan Mohammed ben Abdallah decided to build a new port from scratch and hired a French engineer, Théodore Cornut, who had trained in the European military tradition. Cornut laid out straight streets on a grid behind Vauban-style ramparts with bastions facing the sea.
The result is the only Moroccan medina you cannot get lost in, which some people find a relief and others find a loss. UNESCO listed it in 2001.
Tangier, and what a free port does to a city
Between 1923 and 1956 Tangier was an International Zone, administered jointly by a committee of European powers and the sultan's representative. There were no exchange controls, minimal tax, no meaningful censorship and a banking system that asked nothing.
It attracted what that combination attracts: currency speculators, spies, smugglers and writers. Paul Bowles lived there for over fifty years, Burroughs wrote much of Naked Lunch in a room off the Grand Socco, and Genet, Capote and the Beats passed through. The zone ended with independence and the city declined for decades before a substantial redevelopment from the 2000s.
The Café Hafa, opened in 1921 on terraces above the water, is still there and still serves mint tea to people who want to sit and look at Spain, fourteen kilometres away.
The seven below run north to south.
Tangier
The strait.
Fairmont Tazi Palace Tangier occupies a 1920s palace on a hillside above the city in a large garden, restored recently, with a spa, a pool and views over the strait.
Fairmont Tazi Palace Tangier
Above Tangier · 5★ · $$$
A restored 1920s palace in a garden over the strait
Check availabilityEl Minzah Hotel sits at the edge of the medina in a 1930 building that has taken most of the city's notable visitors, with a courtyard, a pool and a bar that has not changed much.
El Minzah Hotel
Edge of the Tangier medina · 4★ · $$$
A 1930 building with an unchanged bar
Check availabilityVilla Josephine occupies a villa on the Old Mountain above Tangier with a handful of rooms, a garden and the Atlantic on one side and the Mediterranean on the other.
Villa Josephine
Old Mountain, Tangier · 4★ · $$$
A villa with the Atlantic on one side and the Mediterranean on the other
Check availabilityEssaouira
The windward coast.
Heure Bleue Palais occupies a nineteenth-century riad inside the medina with a courtyard, a rooftop over the ramparts and a music room with a piano and a gramophone collection.
Heure Bleue Palais
Essaouira medina · 5★ · $$$
A riad with a rooftop over the ramparts and a music room
Check availabilityLe Medina Essaouira Hotel Thalassa Sea & Spa sits on the beach south of the medina with a thalasso centre, a pool and the wind straight off the Atlantic.
Le Medina Essaouira Hotel Thalassa Sea & Spa
Essaouira beach · 5★ · $$$
A thalasso centre with the Atlantic wind off the sand
Check availabilityVilla Maroc occupies a group of merchants' houses in the medina, among the first to be converted here, with a courtyard and a roof terrace.
Villa Maroc
Essaouira medina · 4★ · $$
Merchants' houses among the first converted here
Check availabilityOualidia
The lagoon coast, two hours north.
La Sultana Oualidia occupies a position above the Oualidia lagoon with a spa, a pool and the oyster beds below.
La Sultana Oualidia
Oualidia lagoon · 5★ · $$$$
A spa above the lagoon and the oyster beds
Check availabilityWhat we have left off
The riads in both medinas are excluded, and in Morocco they are the defining accommodation — a courtyard house with six or eight rooms and a roof terrace. Many are excellent and they are guest houses rather than hotels.
What to do
Walk the Essaouira ramparts at the Skala de la Ville, where the brass cannon still point out to sea and the Atlantic comes over the wall in a swell.
Eat fish at the port grills, chosen from the morning catch and cooked in front of you, and buy the argan oil from a women's cooperative rather than a roadside stall.
In Tangier, go to the Kasbah Museum, the Grand Socco and the Café Hafa, and take the short drive to the Caves of Hercules and Cap Spartel where the two seas meet.
Ride or windsurf. Essaouira has stables on the beach and the sand runs for kilometres south toward Sidi Kaouki.
Listen to gnaoua music, which has its roots in West Africa and is centred on Essaouira, with a festival each June.
Practical notes
Tangier and Essaouira both have airports; Marrakech is three hours from Essaouira by road and Casablanca is three hours from Oualidia.
April to June and September to October are best. The Essaouira wind is strongest in summer, which suits surfers and not sunbathers. Winter on the Atlantic is mild and grey.
Ramadan changes opening hours across the country substantially.
Every hotel bookable on the Moroccan Atlantic
Why is Essaouira so windy?
Atlantic trade winds funnel down the coast and accelerate around the headland, almost daily from spring to autumn. It keeps the town cool and makes the surfing.
Why is its medina different?
It was designed on a grid in the 1760s by a French military engineer, which makes it the one Moroccan medina you cannot get lost in.
What was the Tangier International Zone?
A jointly administered free port from 1923 to 1956 with no exchange controls and little censorship, which attracted writers, spies and speculators.
How many nights?
Six. Three in Essaouira and three in Tangier, or pair either with Marrakech.