Villa Allun Essaouira

... beaches with flocks of kite surfers decorating the skies and seas. A truly enchanting site.

Pete, Sarah, Phil, Craig and I ventured into town together but we soon segregated leaving Sarah and me to drink our Moroccan tea and do a little shopping in peace. The boys weren’t particularly keen on watching us venture into ...

... then sat and Mohammad cooked for us a tradition Morrocan feast, we had soup again for starters with lentals and chick peas in it then he brought out some salad of tomatoes and peppers covered in olive oil and lemon, some bread and a big tagine of beef with olives and peas and green beans it was an amazing meal and both Ian and I stuffed our faces full. We are off tomorrow to fez on the train and it takes 7 hours so we need to get some rest.

... us on. Eventually dismounting at Ground Zero (a decidedly g-forsaken tumble of thorny scrub that no Lonely Planet guidebook would dare to include among the "Gottasees in Morocco") Mohammad gallantly (albeit still dubiously) helped hunt amid the parched thicket til... we finally found the geoprize (an overturned rusty can concealing a trinket-filled tub of Tupperware) - yippeee!

Other Essaouria highlights:

Essaouira, Morocco globalgirl

I’d always had this romantic notion of riding a horse along a deserted beach with the wind blowing through my hair – well it sure was windy, but it wasn’t quite as romantic in reality due to having an extremely sore bum!! I won’t sit down for a week I reckon!! Yep, another dream was realised today.

At breakfast we mentioned to the owner of the riad we are staying in that we wanted to go horse riding – he says that he has a friend who could ...

At 7 A.M. we already left the hotel to move north to the ancient port town Essaouira. It was a Pirate port and has a lot of history to tell and to show us.

The trip was much more dangerously now. The Serpentine is so scary, and the driver of the bus drives like a mad man, but of course, he's just very experienced, but sitting near the window made some people almost sick. The road took ...

Breakfast was surprisingly wonderful in my little hotel along the road, I got a very nice French Crepe, a thin crispy pancake, and a fruit salad. The bus to my next destination Essaouira left at 8 am but I didn't want to spoil the day with the sound of an alarm clock. I was sure there would be some other possibility to get there, and I was right. It was the time of some mutton-eating festival in ...

... are fond of these little riddles and jokes. Bugger off. We just want to drink a quiet tea. We checked out the bus situation and then headed to the bus terminal to see the options for Asilah buses in the morning. It was dark and late out and this is a fishing town so everyone carries knives. We walked quickly. The luxury CTM bus was not leaving until midnight the next day so we went for a very low cost, bus falling apart, local rig that left for Casablanca at 6am. Joy.

Essaouira, population 69,000, is located on the Atlantic coast. It was nice for a change to have a nice ocean breeze cooling off the air. It actually would get cold enough for a sweatshirt jacket at night. The laid-back town was a welcome change. The streets of the medina were much larger here and there was a relaxed atmosphere about. Not as much pressure to shop but ...

well well well i am back again, just wanted a cheap relaxing time before heading off to the uk so headed to the surfing and fishing town of essaouira where the likes of jimi hendrix, cat stevens and rolling stones have holidayed. guess it is relaxing in a moroccain kinda of way. there is always beautiful sunsets over the port , a decentish beach where the waves are small but the surf canaval is still on; camel rides ...

We are now in Essaouira.  Our guide book lists it as one of the most desirable places to 'hang-out' in Morocco.   Unfortunately, it is not the place for us.  Aft** 10 days in Marrakech we w**e ready for eith** anoth** full-on Arabic city (like Fez) - having felt as though we had just mast**ed the art of one - or to go into some more peaceful surroundings, enjoy our books (Him: Jonathan Coe's Rott**s' Club; H**: J**emy Paxman's The English) and get the city out of ...