Essaouira: Morocco's Windy Blue City on the Atlantic

If Marrakech is Morocco turned up to eleven, Essaouira is Morocco at a pleasant seven. A walled Atlantic port town with blue-and-white buildings, Portuguese ramparts, Gnawa music drifting from doorways, and a pace of life that makes you forget you're only 2.5 hours from the medina madness. I came for two days and stayed five.

The Ramparts

The Skala de la Ville — the 18th-century sea-facing fortifications — is the first thing you should see. Cannons lined up along the battlements, the Atlantic crashing below, seagulls wheeling overhead. It was a filming location for Game of Thrones (Astapor, if you're curious). Come at sunset. The light turns the stone gold and the fishermen's boats glow in the harbour below.

The Port

Essaouira's fishing port is small, working, and spectacular. Blue trawlers unload the morning catch — sardines, sea bream, octopus, shrimp — and behind them, a row of grill stalls waits. Pick your fish from the display, hand it to the grill man, and ten minutes later you're eating the freshest seafood possible at a shared table with bread, harissa, and olives. A full plate of grilled fish costs 50–80 MAD ($5–$8). This is the best meal in Essaouira and nobody argues about it.

Gnawa Music

Essaouira is the spiritual home of Gnawa — trance music with sub-Saharan African roots, built on the guembri (a three-stringed bass lute), iron castanets, and call-and-response chanting. You'll hear it everywhere: from shops, from doorways, from impromptu jam sessions in the medina squares. The annual Gnawa Festival in June is world-famous, but any night of the week you can find live Gnawa in the medina. Ask at your riad.

The Wind

They call it the "Wind City of Africa" and they're not joking. The trade winds blow constantly, especially in summer. This makes it a world-class destination for windsurfing and kitesurfing (the beach south of the medina stretches for miles), but it also means bringing a windbreaker even in July. The wind is part of the character. Embrace it.