Essaouira Travel Guide: Morocco's Windy White City

From Marrakech it is 175 kilometres: a shared grand taxi or a private transfer takes about two and a half hours over the Haouz plain, and the buses (CTM, Supratours) run several times daily for a few euros. Some travellers break the journey at Taroudant or continue north to Safi, but the direct run is easy.

Once inside the walls there is no traffic problem — the medina is pedestrian by design, one of the few in Morocco where you can walk the full width without dodging scooters. The port, the Skala and the beach are all within fifteen minutes of any riad. Buggies and horses exist for the lazy, but you will not need them.

Essaouira's old town is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and unusually for Morocco it was planned rather than grown — an eighteenth-century grid designed by a French architect for a sultan who wanted a modern port. The result is wide straight streets, low white houses and a genuine sense of order.

The landmark is the Skala, the sea-facing bastion where the cannons still point at Portugal. Climb it at the end of the day: the view back over the blue shutters, the gulls and the fishing boats is the photograph everyone comes home with. Then lose yourself in the lanes — thuya wood workshops, weavers, the small souks for spices and slippers, and courtyards that open without warning into gardens.

Essaouira's beach is nine kilometres of hard, wet sand — the kind that takes a horse canter without complaint. It is not a sunbathing beach in the Mediterranean sense; it is a wind beach, which is exactly why kitesurfers and windsurfers treat the bay as a playground. Lessons from the schools on the promenade cost far less than in Europe, and summer's consistent meltem wind makes beginners safe quickly.

Beyond the water: the Îles Purpuraires sit offshore, once the Tyrian purple workshops of antiquity — boats go out for birdwatching and a picnic. South of town the road to Diabat passes the dunes and the ruined palace where Jimi Hendrix reportedly spent an afternoon. Inland, the argan cooperatives let you watch goats climb trees, which never stops being funny.

Sleep inside the walls if you can: a riad with a courtyard roof gives you the medina at night and the ocean roar four streets away. Outside the walls there are resort-style hotels near the beach — fine for families, but you miss the town.

Timing matters more here than elsewhere. April to June and September to October are the sweet spots — warm, windy enough for the beach, and empty. August is cool but crowded with Moroccans on holiday. December to February is genuinely low season: grey, wet and dramatic, and half the price.

The classic combination is a Marrakech stay with three nights in Essaouira, or the loop that ties the coast to the desert: Marrakech, Dades, the dunes, then back — with Essaouira as the calm ending before the flight home.