Seven days in Morocco, saving Fes for the finale

Most flights land in the afternoon. Resist the urge to plunge straight into the medina — jet lag and sensory overload make a poor pairing. Let your riad receive you instead: a glass of mint tea, a roof terrace at sunset, dinner in the courtyard. This first evening sets the tempo for the week. If you're staying in the medina proper, your driver-guide will park outside and walk you through the alley to the door — part of the arrival ritual.

Start early, before the heat builds and Djemaa el-Fna fills with smoke. The souks at 9 am are a different animal: traders setting out their stalls, light dropping through the reed ceilings, no pressure to buy. The Ben Youssef Medersa rewards a slow hour — and makes a useful first note of comparison for the grander Fassi medersas waiting at the end of the week. Lunch inside the medina at a small Berber café rather than the restaurants ringing the square, then the afternoon is yours: the Mellah's silver jewellers, the dye quarter, or honestly a hammam and a rest before dinner.

Leave Marrakech by 8 am to take the pass before the midday heat. The Tizi n'Tichka (2,260 m) is one of Morocco's most dramatic: red rock faces, Berber villages clinging to ledges, argan trees thinning to bare scree. Stop at Aït Ben Haddou for lunch and an hour through the ksar — the noon light is stark and photogenic. Carry on to Ouarzazate for the night; the film-studio capital of Morocco earns its curious reputation. Dinner on a rooftop above the kasbah walls.

The N10 east of Ouarzazate is one of Africa's great road-trip routes. Stop at Skoura to walk the palmery and visit Kasbah Amerhidil. The kasbahs multiply as the road deepens into the pre-Saharan plain — Kelaa M'Gouna in rose season (April–May) smells extraordinary. Arrive in Dades Gorge by late afternoon: the canyon turns blood-red at dusk. Stay in a small lodge above the gorge floor with views up the valley. Dinner is simple and excellent — tagine, salad, home-pressed argan oil.

An early drive north from Dades brings you to the Todra Gorge by 9 am — a slot canyon with 300-metre walls that narrows to eight metres at its tightest. The light is at its best in the morning. Walk the canyon floor (30 minutes) before the tour buses arrive. Then south and east across the hammada — Morocco's stony desert — to Merzouga and the Erg Chebbi dunes. Reach camp before sunset. The camel ride into the dunes is entirely optional; many guests prefer a 4x4 transfer. The camp dinner under an unpolluted sky is not optional: it's the reason you came.

Wake before dawn — 5:30 am feels brutal until you watch the dunes turn amber. Coffee in camp, then into the vehicle for the long northward drive: Erfoud, Rich, up through the Middle Atlas cedar forests, arriving in Fès in the early evening. It is around five to six hours with stops — a travel day, but the cedar country around Azrou and the alpine oddity of Ifrane reward an open eye. Check into your riad deep in Fès el-Bali, a vast car-free medieval city, and let the medina settle around you before dinner of pastilla and tagine in a Fassi courtyard.

Fès is the reward for everything before it, and it asks for an unhurried day. Begin at the Bou Inania Medersa — a masterpiece of carved stucco, cedar and zellige — then walk the spice lanes to the smaller, jewel-box Al-Attarine Medersa beside the Kairaouine, the mosque-and-university founded in 859 that anchors the whole city. The Chouara tanneries are best seen from the leather-shop terraces above, where a sprig of mint cuts the air; go before 11 am while the dye vats are in full work. Cross the river to the quieter Andalusian quarter, lunch in a neighbourhood restaurant, leave time for a brass or zellige workshop — then transfer to the airport for an evening flight. Seven days, one country, and the artisan capital saved for last.