Morocco’s Imperial Cities and the Coast: How to Sequence Them

The commonest shape of a first Morocco trip is a loop of the imperial cities with a coastal stop bolted on near the end. It is a good instinct and it is almost always sequenced wrong.

The problem is not the destinations. It is that medinas are intense in a specific and cumulative way — the noise, the navigation, the constant low-level negotiation — and four of them in sequence produces a particular kind of traveller fatigue that people tend to blame on the last city they visited. Fes gets a bad review that really belongs to the itinerary.

If you are planning a route through Morocco’s imperial cities and coast, the useful questions are about order and spacing rather than about which sights to see. Which cities go next to each other. Where the coast belongs. And how to use the one bit of transport infrastructure that most itineraries ignore.

On the question of which of the four cities to prioritise if you cannot do them all, we have written separately: see our guide to the four imperial cities of Morocco and which to choose. This article assumes you have decided and are working out the route.

The Four Cities, in Terms of Routing

All four are UNESCO-listed, and the inscription years are a decent proxy for how differently each one is valued: the Medina of Fez in 1981, the Medina of Marrakesh in 1985, the Historic City of Meknes in 1996, and Rabat in 2012 under the unusual title “Rabat, Modern Capital and Historic City: a Shared Heritage.”

For sequencing purposes, what matters is that they are not interchangeable and they do not all need the same amount of time.

Fes needs the most, and should come early

Fes is the densest and most demanding of the four, and it is also the one that rewards time most. It needs two nights minimum, three if you can. Put it early, while your appetite for medinas is still intact — a common and avoidable mistake is to save Fes for last as the climax and arrive there exhausted.

One thing worth getting right, because almost every guide and article states it as settled fact: the al-Qarawiyyin. You will be told it is the oldest university in the world, founded in 859 by Fatima al-Fihri. UNESCO and Guinness World Records have both described it in those terms — Guinness as the oldest existing and continually operating educational institution in the world. But the picture is genuinely contested. A foundation inscription points to a different founder and date, Dawud ibn Idris in 877; some historians question whether Fatima al-Fihri was a historical figure at all; and many scholars reserve the word “university” for the medieval European institution, noting that al-Qarawiyyin functioned as a madrasa until it was integrated into the state system in 1947 and reorganised as a university by royal decree in 1963.

None of that diminishes it. An institution of learning operating continuously on the same site since the ninth century is remarkable by any measure. But you will get more out of standing in front of it if you know the real argument rather than the tour-guide version. We cover more of this layer of history in our piece on the three sister minarets and Almohad architecture. Our guide to Fes goes into the city itself.

Meknes and Volubilis are one stop, not two

Meknes is the quietest of the four and the easiest to underestimate. Moulay Ismail made it his capital in the seventeenth century and built on a scale that is still startling — the monumental Bab Mansour gateway, enormous granaries and stables, long stretches of wall.

It is also about an hour from Fes, which means most itineraries treat it as a half-day stop on the way through. That works, and it works much better combined with Volubilis, the Roman city inscribed in 1997, which sits nearby in open farmland. Volubilis is the single best counterweight to medina fatigue in the whole country: it is outdoors, uncrowded, quiet, and nobody is selling you anything. A morning at Volubilis and an afternoon in Meknes is one of the best-paced days available in northern Morocco.

Go to Volubilis early or late. There is almost no shade on the site, which is a real consideration from May onwards.

Rabat is the pacing fix

Rabat is the one most travellers cut, and I think that is usually a mistake — not because it has the best sights, but because of what it does to the rhythm of a trip.

It is the administrative capital, it is comparatively calm, it is on the ocean, and nobody hassles you. Its UNESCO inscription explicitly recognises both the historic city and the twentieth-century planned capital, which is unusual and tells you what the place is: a city where the Almohad walls, the Kasbah of the Udayas above the river mouth, the Chellah necropolis and the Hassan Tower sit alongside a functioning modern capital with wide avenues and a tram.

Dropped between Fes and Casablanca, or between Fes and Marrakech, a night in Rabat resets a trip. One night is enough. Our Rabat guide covers what to see.

Marrakech is best at one end

Marrakech is the most visited and the most commercial of the four, with the widest range of places to stay and the best onward connections — to the Atlas, to Essaouira, and south to the desert. That makes it a natural beginning or end rather than a middle.

Put it at the end if you want to finish with comfort, shopping and an easy flight out. Put it at the start if the desert or the mountains are the main event and the cities are the preamble. What I would avoid is landing in Marrakech, going north to Fes, and coming back — that repeats a long stretch of road or rail for no gain.

The Coast Is Not One Place

“And then a few days on the coast” is the vaguest line in most draft itineraries, and it hides four genuinely different options.

Essaouira

The walled Atlantic port, inscribed in 2001 as the Medina of Essaouira (Formerly Mogador). Compact, windswept, with ramparts over the sea, a working fishing harbour and a slower temperament than anywhere inland. It is about three hours west of Marrakech, which makes it the natural coastal partner to Marrakech rather than to the northern cities.

The wind is the thing to know: it blows hard and almost constantly, which is why the town is a windsurfing centre and why people who came for a beach holiday are sometimes surprised. It is a wonderful place to walk, eat fish and do very little. Give it two nights. Our Essaouira guide has more.

Tangier and the north

Tangier is the other end of the country and a completely different register — Mediterranean-facing, cosmopolitan, with a literary history and a recently rebuilt waterfront. It only makes sense in an itinerary that starts or ends in the north, which is increasingly practical because of the train (below). Pair it with Chefchaouen and the Medina of Tétouan, inscribed in 1997 and among the least-visited UNESCO sites in Morocco.

El Jadida

The Portuguese City of Mazagan at El Jadida was inscribed in 2004, and its extraordinary vaulted Portuguese cistern — a stone chamber half-filled with water that reflects the ceiling — is one of the most atmospheric interiors in the country. It sits south of Casablanca, which puts it on the road between the north and Marrakech. It is a short stop rather than a stay, and it is a good one.

Casablanca

Honestly: Casablanca is a working city of several million people, not a holiday destination. The Hassan II Mosque is genuinely worth seeing — it is one of the few mosques in Morocco non-Muslim visitors may enter, and the scale of it is hard to convey — and the art deco architecture downtown rewards a walk. Beyond that, most travellers are happier spending the night elsewhere. Its real function in an itinerary is as an airport and a rail hub.

The Train Changes the Calculation

This is the part most imperial-cities itineraries ignore, and it is the single biggest improvement available to a northern route.

Morocco has a high-speed rail line. Al Boraq was inaugurated on 15 November 2018 and runs the 323 kilometres between Tangier and Casablanca — a dedicated 186-kilometre high-speed line from Tangier to Kenitra at up to 320 km/h, then 137 kilometres of upgraded mainline through Rabat into Casablanca. It cut the Tangier–Casablanca journey from four hours and forty-five minutes to about two hours and ten minutes, and it stops at Tanger-Ville, Kenitra, Rabat-Agdal and Casa-Voyageurs.

Conventional ONCF services connect onward to Fes, Meknes and Marrakech. An extension of the high-speed network towards Marrakech has been announced in segments from Kenitra, with further ambitions towards Agadir, but no completion dates have been published, so plan around what runs today rather than what is promised.

Why this matters for routing: the Tangier–Rabat–Casablanca–Marrakech corridor is the one stretch of a Morocco itinerary where a car is actively worse than the alternative. It is motorway driving with nothing to stop for, and the train is faster, cheaper, more comfortable and removes a driver day. The right hybrid for most northern itineraries is rail for the long north–south legs and a car and driver for the parts where the road is the point — Volubilis and the Meknes countryside, the Middle Atlas, the route south from Marrakech.

Two honest caveats. First, first class is worth booking and worth booking in advance, particularly around Moroccan holidays. Second, the train only helps on that corridor; for anything involving the mountains, the gorges or the desert, you need a vehicle, as our guide to building a custom Sahara desert itinerary sets out.

Shapes That Work

Seven nights: the short northern loop

Fly into Fes. Fes, three nights — a day for Volubilis and Meknes from there — train to Rabat, one night — on to Marrakech, three nights. No repeated ground, one long rail leg instead of two driving days, and the calm of Rabat sitting exactly where the trip needs it.

Nine nights: cities plus Essaouira

The same as above, with Essaouira inserted for two nights between Rabat and Marrakech or after Marrakech. Essaouira after Marrakech is the better order if you want to end quietly; before it, if you want to end with the energy and the shopping.

Ten to twelve nights: north to south, coast in the middle

Fly into Tangier. Tangier, two nights, with Tétouan or Chefchaouen — Al Boraq south to Rabat, one night — Fes, three nights with Volubilis and Meknes — down to Marrakech, three nights — Essaouira, two nights — out of Marrakech or Essaouira. This is the fullest version of the imperial cities and coast and it uses the train for exactly the legs where driving is wasted.

If the desert is also on the list

Then something has to give, and I would rather tell you that than build a twelve-day trip with fifteen days of content in it. The usual honest trade is to drop Tangier and the north, or to drop one of Meknes and Rabat, and to enter the desert from Fes and leave towards Marrakech so the Sahara sits in the middle of the route rather than as an out-and-back. Our luxury tailor-made Morocco tours page covers how the longer combined journeys are structured.

The Mechanics Nobody Mentions

A cities-and-coast route involves more moving between places than a desert trip does, and the friction is almost always in the same four places.

Luggage and the medina

Vehicles cannot enter most of the old cities. In Fes this is absolute — the medina is a pedestrian and pack-animal city — and in Marrakech and Meknes it is true of all the smaller lanes. So arriving at a riad means stopping at the nearest gate and walking in, with your bags taken on a handcart by a porter, sometimes for a good ten minutes.

Two consequences. Pack lighter than you would for a hotel trip, and hard four-wheel suitcases are the wrong luggage for this itinerary — they do badly on uneven stone and worse on steps. And tell your riad your arrival time, because the porter arrangement needs someone expecting you. This is the single most common first-hour frustration in Morocco and it is entirely avoidable.

Riad or hotel

In the medina cities the riad — a courtyard house turned guesthouse — is the authentic and generally the better choice: quiet, cool, inward-facing, often beautiful. The trade-offs are real though: small rooms, stairs rather than lifts, no gym or spa in most, variable soundproofing between rooms around a courtyard that acts as an amplifier, and that walk from the gate.

Travellers with mobility constraints, very early flights or a lot of luggage are often better served by a hotel in the new town, and there is no shame in it. A common and sensible compromise is a riad in Fes, where the medina is the entire point, and a hotel or a riad with vehicle access in Marrakech.

Guides, and the licensing question

Morocco licenses its guides, and in the medinas a licensed local guide is worth paying for — not mainly for navigation but because the historical and architectural layers are invisible without someone to read them. A driver is not a guide, and the two are separate roles and separate costs.

The flip side is the unofficial guide who attaches himself to you at a gate. He is not dangerous; he is working on commission, and the tour will be routed accordingly. A polite, firm, repeated no is the whole technique.

Getting lost, which you will

You will get lost in Fes. Everyone does; the medina is one of the largest car-free urban areas in the world and the lanes do not resolve into a grid. Offline maps help less than people expect because GPS is unreliable between high walls. The practical answers are to learn the name of your nearest gate, to keep the riad’s card with its Arabic address, and to treat an hour of being lost as part of the experience rather than a failure — which, in Fes, it genuinely is.

What to Skip, Honestly

• A night in Casablanca, unless your flight requires it. See the mosque in transit.
• Four medinas without a break between them. Volubilis, Rabat or the coast between any two of them is what makes the fourth one enjoyable.
• One night in Fes. Two is the floor. One night means a hurried half-day in the most complex medina in North Africa.
• Marrakech in the middle of a north–south route you then reverse. Put it at an end.
• Driving the Casablanca–Rabat–Tangier motorway when the train exists. There is nothing to see and you are paying for a driver to sit in traffic.
• A coastal day as a rest day at the very end. If you need a pause, put it in the middle, where it does some good.

Season

The cities and the coast want different weather, which is the one genuine scheduling tension in this itinerary.

Spring and autumn are straightforwardly the best: the medinas are walkable, Volubilis is pleasant, and the coast is warm enough. High summer is hard inland — Fes and Marrakech in July and August are punishing for the kind of all-day walking a medina requires — while the Atlantic coast stays comparatively cool, so a summer trip should be weighted towards the coast with inland cities visited early and late in the day. Winter is excellent in the cities, cold at night, and the coast turns grey and windy; Essaouira in January is atmospheric rather than beachy.

One cultural note worth planning around rather than avoiding: during Ramadan the cities change rhythm, with quiet days and animated evenings. It is a fascinating time to visit, as long as you know that some restaurants close during daylight and that the pace is different.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many days do you need for the imperial cities and the coast?

Seven nights covers two cities plus a pacing stop. Nine to ten nights does the four cities with one coastal stay without rushing. Twelve nights adds the north. If the Sahara is also on the list, something has to be dropped rather than compressed.

Should I take the train or hire a car and driver?

Both. The train is better for the Tangier–Rabat–Casablanca–Marrakech corridor, where the driving is dull motorway, and Al Boraq covers Tangier to Casablanca in a little over two hours. A car and driver earns its cost where the route itself matters: Volubilis and Meknes, the Middle Atlas, and anything south of Marrakech.

Which imperial city should I spend the most time in?

Fes, and it is not close. It needs two nights minimum and rewards three. It should also come early in a trip rather than last.

Is Rabat worth including?

Yes, for what it does to the pacing. It is calm, coastal, unhassled, and its UNESCO inscription uniquely covers both the historic city and the planned twentieth-century capital. One night between two medina cities is often the difference between enjoying the fourth one and enduring it.

Which coast should I choose?

Essaouira if your trip centres on Marrakech, which is the most common case. Tangier and Tétouan only if you are starting or finishing in the north. El Jadida as a stop rather than a stay. Casablanca as an airport.

Getting the Order Right

Almost everything that goes wrong with this itinerary is a sequencing error rather than a choice of destination. Too many medinas in a row, the coast too late to be restorative, Fes given one night, and a driver paid to cover a motorway the train does better.

If you would like your version built properly — the order worked out around your flights, rail where it beats the road, and the pauses placed where they actually help — send us your dates and the cities you have your heart set on. If you are also choosing where to stay in each one, our guide to luxury riads and palaces in Morocco covers the houses worth planning a night around.