NEW FOR 2016
Take a look at these suggestions for a great full day’s outing during your sojourn in Morocco.
The High Atlas with the Berbers
Eat, bake, weave and throw yourself a souvenir pot
Immerse yourself in the daily life of an authentic mountain community. The journey through the lush Ourika Valley and the dramatic landscape of the Atlas mountains by luxurious SUV will be your only non-Berber experience on this eye-opening, hands-on adventure.
Bake bread and prepare tagine in the kitchen of a village family and get to know them better over a pot of traditional mint tea – made by you! The conversation should also start to flow, with a little help from your guide.
While lunch is simmering, you can get your hands stuck into wet clay in a ceramics workshop. Later, try your hand at weaving a colourful kilim with the local women behind their prized ancestral looms, and walk the farm terraces to see the hard labour that ancient irrigation and subsistence farming methods involve.
You’ll also meet the community’s youngest members at the charity pre-school centre where young Berbers learn Arabic in preparation for big school. How’s yours coming on?
Flavours of Fez
A spicy Medina tasting tour
You’ll feel like a kid in a sweet shop as we explore the ancient city through its array of organic produce. From the Blue Gate, we stall-hop through the food markets, chatting to merchants and sampling their wares – Moroccan crepes, speciality breads, plump dates, dried fruits, olives, snails and infinite varieties of honey.
See how the locals make salted butter and phyllo pastry for pastille, and absorb the culture shock as you watch sheep’s heads being steamed in cumin and camel meat being carved into choice cuts by expert butchers.
Leave room for lunch, ordered up from the tiny stores in the restaurant quarter – an opportunity to try a feast of Fez delicacies on the hoof: the labourer’s lunch of garlic broad bean puree, or something hot and spicy like Makouda – crispy deep-fried sardine and potato balls.
Finish your day with a visit to a traditional Moroccan teahouse and a tasting of Morocco’s delicious home-made pastries – they’re addictive! You might find you don’t have much of an appetite left for dinner!
