Rabat & the Chellah Necropolis — Guided Excursion

Rabat is the quiet capital, Atlantic and low-rise, and it makes a long but easy day from Fez. It is the one trip on this list where you end the afternoon with sea air.

You start at Chellah, a Roman town that the Merinids turned into a walled necropolis, now half-ruin and half-garden with storks nesting on the minaret. Then the Kasbah of the Udayas, whose blue and white lanes run down to the mouth of the Bou Regreg and open onto a terrace above the ocean, and the Andalusian garden inside the walls. The Hassan Tower stands unfinished where a twelfth-century sultan died before the mosque was built, and the mausoleum of Mohammed V faces it across the columns.

There is free time for lunch by the water or in the medina, which is small, tidy and much gentler to shop in than Fez. Depending on the day and the traffic we can add the royal palace gates or the modern seafront on the way out. It is around four hours each way, so we leave early and get you back in the evening.