Marocko

Pittoreska berberbyar, bräkande getter, frodiga dalgångar och Nordafrikas högsta bergstoppar. Marcus Westberg gav sig ut på en strapatsrik – och stundtals smärtsam – vandring genom Atlasbergen.

By the time caravans laden with gold and spice reached Skoura, the camels must’ve been gasping. After a two-month journey across the Sahara, blue-robed Tuareg desert traders offloaded cargo from caravans in Skoura, where Middle Atlas mountaineers packed it onto mules headed to Fez. Ouarzazate, 39km west, is now the region’s commercial center, but Skoura’s historic mudbrick castles remain, and traders throng Monday and Thursday souqs brimming with intensely flavorful desert produce. When market days are done and palm-tree shadows stretch across the road, no one seems in a hurry to leave.

Prepare for your senses to be slapped - Marrakesh's heady sights and sounds will dazzle, frazzle and enchant. Put on your babouches (leather slippers) and dive right in.

The tortilla, paella and rioja (Spanish wine) served in most of Asilah's restaurants are reminders that this compact town was Spanish territory for a long time. Today, it's an easy introduction to Morocco, offering a good selection of budget and midrange accommodation and an extremely pretty medina to explore. There are also plenty of clean swimming and surf beaches close by.

Temperatures are cooler in the shadow of snowcapped High Atlas peaks, and this blooming valley a little more than 50km south of Marrakesh is the city’s escape hatch from the soaring summer heat. The valley is especially mood-altering from February to April, when almond and cherry orchards bloom manically and wildflowers run riot.

Who would expect to find hundreds of modernist buildings, the second-largest such collection outside Barcelona, in North Africa? Yet here they are, along with one perfectly preserved medieval fortress, several fascinating museums and a wealth of tapas bars. The result is Melilla, a great place to spend the weekend.

It is the coastal wind – the beautifully named alizee, or taros in Berber – that has allowed Essaouira (essa-weera, or es-sweera in Arabic) to retain its traditional culture and character. For most of the year, the wind blows so hard here that relaxing on the beach is impossible, meaning that the town is bypassed by the hordes of beach tourists who descend on other Atlantic Coast destinations in summer. Known as the ‘Wind City of Africa’, it attracts plenty of windsurfers between April and November, but the majority of visitors come here in spring and autumn to wander through the spice-scented lanes and palm-lined avenues of the fortified medina, browse the many art galleries and boutiques, relax in some of the country's best hotels and watch fishing nets being mended and traditional boats being constructed in the hugely atmospheric port.