Imperial Cities & North Culture experience Travel 9 Days

Imperial Cities & North Culture experience Travel 9 Days

DAY 1: WELCOME TO MOROCCO  (30 KM)

Welcome to Morocco! On arrival at Casablanca Airport, you will be met by a Premium Morocco Tours representative and transferred to your hotel. While this is an arrival day and you may arrive at any time, please note that hotel rooms are generally only available after midday, and that there will a Welcome Meeting with your leader tonight. If you arrive with time to spare, then a great option for your limited time in Casablanca is to visit the City Centre for a different type of cultural experience, then you can discover a unique and fascinating Souks.

Notes: Please be aware that some of our travellers in Casablanca are being approached by locals offering excursions before their Premium Tours trip commences. This has been particularly prevalent in and around the hotels used by Premium Tours. These guides are in no way connected to Premium Morocco Tours and we cannot guarantee the safety or quality standards of their tours. We strongly advise customers not to join any tour offered by unauthorised guides. Premium Tours assesses the safety of all optional excursions offered by our tour leaders. If you would like more information on the excursions available, please contact us before you travel or see the Premium Tours

(OPTIONAL ACTIVITIES) Morning departure from your hotel or the Airport of Casablanca.

Casablanca is locally known as Casa. The biggest city in the Maghreb ( north Africa), Casablanca is the heart of Moroccan economy. Enjoy Casablanca’s vibrant new city, visit the old medina, Corniche beach clubs, and dine at seafood restaurants along the Corniche seaside avenue.

Start your morning off with a visit to Hassan II Mosque designed by the French architect Michel Pinseau. It is situated on a promontory looking out to the Atlantic, which can be seen through a gigantic glass floor with room for 25,000 worshippers. Its minaret is the world’s tallest at 210 meters. It is an enormous architectural masterpiece and the second largest religious building in the world. On Fridays, the Mosque of Hassan II is open to non-Muslims. The Mosque of Hassan II’s promontory offers lovely views overlooking Casa in the residential Anfa quarter..

Visit the famous clock tower, Art Deco buildings, and the eleven-story Moretti apartment block on Boulevard Mohmmed V. Visit the famous residential blocks of the Glaoui, the Bessonneau, and the Asayag. Stroll the labyrinth of narrow streets lined with jewelers and artisanal shops. See La Squala, the fortified 18th century wall of the city. Visit the nearby shrine and tomb of Sidi Allal el-Kairouant, Casablanca’s patron saint.

Enjoy lunch at one of the international restaurants on the Corniche, El Mer, or Rick’s Cafe.

Next visit the Habous Market, a traditional Moroccan souk, to explore first hand and connect with the locals.

Accommodation : http://www.valdanfahotel.com  

Included Activities

Casablanca Hassan 2 Mosque

Meals Included: Welcome Dinner.

DAY 2: CASABLANCA – TANGIER

Drive for 5 hours from Casablanca to the Rif mountains, arrive to Tangier and Start your day with a city overview at the vantage point of the Colline de Bella-Vista. Then, drive to see the Grand Socco, a popular nighttime square close to the Mosque of Sidi Bou Abib and the link between Ville Nouvelle and the medina.

Next visit the Caves of Hercules (Grottos) and Cap Spartel, a majestic part of Tangier and one not often seen by those passing through.

Cape Spartel is northernmost point of mainland Africa. The cape rises to a height of 326 meters. At the top of Jebel Quebir there is a near to the end of the cape which serves as a lighthouse. Below the cape are the Caves of Hercules. The caves have shown evidence of neolithic occupation and before they were a tourist attraction they were brothels. Historically the rock was mined and this was the result of the caves creation. Near Cape Spartel is Spartel Bank, a sunken island hypothesized by some as the location of the legendary island of Atlantic.

Option to visit the Sh’ar Raphael Synagogue, one of the surviving remnants of Jewish Heritage in Tangier.

Next, visit the old medina, enter the medina at Rue Es-Siaghinie, the busiest part of this Roman medina lined with cafes and bazaars, a Spanish church, jewelers’ shops and an arts center displaying works depicting Tangier’s social history. Walk Petit Socco which was once the heart of the medina where businessmen and bankers frequented cafes, hotels, casinos and cabarets that have relocated to Ville Nouvelle. Move on to visit the Grand Mosque, built on the site of a Portuguese cathedral. Walking north, you will then visit the Kasbah decorated with mosaics, ornamental stucco and woodcarving.

Accommodation : http://www.riadmokhtar.com/  

Meals Activities

Visit Tangier

Meals included : Breakfast

Day 4: CHEFCHAOUEN – MEKNES – VOLUBILIS – FES

After Breakfast, Transfer to the UNESCO-sponsored Roman ruins in Volubilis, a Berber and Roman city partly excavated by the UNESCO. Volubilis was considered as the ancient capital of the Kingdom of Mauretania. The city was developed from the 3rd century BC onward as an Amazigh, then proto-Carthaginian, and from from the 1st century AD onward, the city grew rapidly under the Roman rule, we will visit the holiest islamic city in Morocco, Moulay idriss, who brought islam to Morocco, Lunch in one of local restaurants.

Transfer to Meknes, the “Moroccan Versailles” and one of the oldest cities in the kingdom. Meknes was the capital of Morocco under the reign of Moulay Ismail (1672–1727), a contemporary of Louis XIV, before it was relocated to Marrakesh. Stop at the massive Bab El Mansour gate, which is the grandest of all imperial Moroccan gateways.

Bab El Mansour gate was completed by Moulay Ismail’s son, Moulay Abdallah, in 1732. Stop next at Hri Souani, which is a complex of three different buildings built for granaries and stables. This amazing site has been used as a scene for many films, the most famous of which is probably “The Last Temptation of Christ” in 1988 by Martin Scorsese.

Arrive to Fes, the spiritual capital of Morocco.

Accommodation: http://www.riadmarjana.com/  (2 nights)

Included Activities

Rabat – Guided Walking Tour / Chella, Oudaya, Hassan Tower

Guided walking Tour Volubilis

Meals Included : Breakfast, dinner

 

DAY 5:  FES CITY MEDINA GUIDED HISTORICAL TOUR

Breakfast in the hotel. Enjoy the guided city tour of Fes. Begin with the entrance to the largest royal palace in Morocco. Continue with a panoramic view of the ancient medina. Enjoy an authentic experience at the traditional ceramic crafts village of Fes after that. Your next stop is Fes El Bali, the ancient town or Medina, which is a medieval part of Fes that has not changed for centuries.

Optional lunch at a local restaurant. Visit the famous Al-Karaouine mosque, built by Fatima Al Fihria in 857. Al-Karaouine mosque became home to the University of Al-Karaouine, which is the first university in the world and the world’s foremost center of learning at the beginning of the second millennium.

The university was built by Fatima Al Fihria in 859, and, since then, it has become one of the leading spiritual and educational centers of the Muslim world. In the medina, visit also a Merdersa, which is a Coranic school. Complete the city tour of Fes with the leather Souq and the oldest Leather Tannery in the world. The tannery dates back at least nine centuries.

Activities :

Guided walking tour Fes

Fondouk Nejjarine

Mederassa Alakrawyin, Tanneries, Jewish Quarter

Meals Included : Breakfast, dinner

 

Day 6: FES – IFRAN – MARRAKECH

Breakfast in the hotel. Transfer to Marrakech, “Paris of the Sahara” and Winston Churchill once described it. The journey takes you through the Middle Atlas Mountains. Stop first in Ifrane, a charming town and ski resort. Ifrane is famous for its Alpine climate, European-style houses and its 1665 metres (5,460 ft) in elevation. Ifrane experiences snow during winter months and a cool climate during summer. Ifrane is also the place where the lowest temperature was ever recorded in Africa,
-24 °C in 1935. Expect to find animals like the threatened Barbary Macaque and local tree species such as the native Atlas cedar, Scrub oak and the introduced London plane. Arrive at Beni Mellal where you will stop for an optional lunch. Beni Mellal is an agrecultral city near the middle Atlas, we then continue to Marrakech, an optional visit to Ouzoud waterfalls.

 

Accommodation: http://www.riadnesma.com OR /HOTEL MOGADOR MENARA ( 3night)

Activities

Visit Ouzoud waterfalls

Meals Included: Breakfast, dinner

 

Day 7:  MARRAKECH MEDINA GUIDED TOUR

Breakfast in the hotel. Enjoy a guided city tour of Marrakech. Stop first at the Koutoubia Mosque, which is an old monument built under the reign of the Almohad Caliph Yaqub al-Mansur (1184 to 1199). This monument inspired other buildings such as the Giralda in Seville in Spain and the Hassan Tower in Rabat. Stop next at the Bahia Palace. This Palace was built in the late 19th century and was intended to capture the essence of the Islamic and Moroccan style. Visit Madrasa Ben Youssef after that. This Coranic school is named after the Almoravid Sultan Ali Ibn Yusuf (reigned 1106–1142). Madrasa Ben Youssef is the largest in all of Morocco. Stop next at the Saadian tombs, which is a site that dates back to the time of the sultan Ahmad al-Mansur (1578-1603). The tombs were discovered in 1917 and were restored by the Beaux-arts service.

Optional lunch at a local restaurant. Continue the tour with the world famous Jema El Fna Square where you will enjoy amazing performance of traditional activities by storytellers, snake charmers, peddlers of traditional medicines. Your last stop is the bustling souks in the old medina. Optional dinner.

Overnight in Marrakesh.

Activities

Guided walking tour Marrakech

Majorel Gardens

Bahia Palace

Souks

Jamaa lfna & Koutoubia

Coranic medrassa ben youssef

Monuments and Heritage Tour

Meals Included: Breakfast

 

Day 8: MARRAKECH – ESSAOUIRA

Breakfast in the hotel. Transfer to Essaouira, which is another charming town in Morocco. Essaouira is a relatively small, easily navigable beach city. Essaouira has got a distinct multicultural feel, resulting from the large Portuguese, French, and Jewish populations that once called it home. Its mild climate and expansive stretches of ocean sand also place it among Morocco’s top beach towns. Essaouira’s walled medina was added to UNESCO’s World Heritage list in 2001. Its well-preserved, late-18th-century fortified layout is a prime example of European military architecture in North Africa.

For the visitor, the mellow atmosphere, narrow winding streets lined with colourful shops, whitewashed houses and heavy old wooden doors make it a wonderful place to stroll.

Optional lunch at a local restaurant.

Late in the afternoon, transfer back to Marrakech.

Optional dinner in the hotel. Overnight in Marrakesh.

Included Activities

Argan co-operative, Visit Fishing boats port, Skali

Free time

Meals Included

Breakfast, dinner

DAY 09: CASABLANCA / — AIRPORT TRANSFER

Your trip ends today after breakfast. Check-out time is usually around midday and you are free to leave at any time. we have arranged a private airport transfer you will be advised of the pick-up time. Additional accommodation can be pre-booked if you wish to spend more time exploring here. Speak to your leader about the wealth of extra activities to do around Marrakech.
Early morning airport assistance and transfer.

Imperial Cities & North Culture experience Travel 9 Days

Imperial Cities & North Culture experience Travel 9 Days, offer fabulous experiences in Morocco´s most attractive zones: from The most vibrant cities and Medinas, Architectural tours, Food and Wine Tours, Roman Ruins archeological sites, Culture of the Berbers, Moroccan History, Luxury hotels and Riads, the High Atlas Mountains; The rural villages of the countryside and the Sahara Desert itself. There is also one very unique stay in the Sahara dunes where we travel in and out by camel and stay in a Bedouin style camp.

We invite you to join a life enhancing journeys visiting Morocco landscapes in comfort on our Imperial Cities & North Culture experience Travel 9 Day – leading to the most charming, historical Medinas and Monuments in Morocco, from Hassan 2 Mosque in Casablanca, through the Blue City of Chefchaouen and the archaeological Roman town of Volubilis, breaking the journey at Fez, Morocco’s most inspiring Medina, travel to the famous Erg Chebbi dunes where we’ll travel on camel back and spend a night under the stars in a Bedouin camp. Consider this a personal reward for your efforts!

Highlights

• – View the stunning contrast of Morocco
• – Deep Introduction to Culture, Nature, Life Philosophy
• – Enjoy authentic Berber’s hospitality
• – Taste delicious traditional Berber food
• – Explore one of Morocco Beautiful deserts
• – Ride in a 4×4 in Sahara & Atlas Mountains
• – Spend three full days seeing the best of what Sahara has to offer

Essential Information:

Why Us?:

– Your hotel Pick-up, so you spend the maximum time exploring real & Authentic, Sahara Desert & Atlas Mountains, Private tour at your own pace

– Top Rated tour, with 5 star customer feedback and a Excellence reviews from Trip Advisor

– One guide that is with you from the moment you arrive in Morocco until you leave, taking care of your entire trip.

Visited Places

• Rabat & Casablanca
• Chefchaouen
• Fes Medina
• Meknes
• Volubilis
• Atlantic ocean

Travel Experience

• Moroccan Culture & People, Food & History
• Berber Culture
• Berber music and animation
• Visit the northern Morocco

Travel Preparation:

The list below is a suggestion of what you might find useful to take on this trip. It is not an exhaustive packing list. If you need further advice, please contact us or consult your nearest outdoor store.

Clothing & Footwear:

• Comfortable walking clothes that are suitable for layering
• Fleece jacket/warm jumper
• Lightweight raincoat/windbreaker
• Comfortable shoes for walking
• Sandals/flip-flops
• Synthetic/woollen socks
• Hat
• Swimsuit
• Sarong/scarf/loose cotton trousers that can easily be pulled on over shorts to cover shoulders/legs when walking through villages

Equipment:

• Day pack
• Beach towel
• Water bottle/hydration bladder
• Water purification pen/tablets
• Sunglasses
• Head torch
• Camera, memory card and charger
• Spare batteries
• Personal items (including hand sanitiser, lip balm, microfibre towel, sunscreen, toilet paper, toiletries, wet wipes etc)
• Medicine and copy of doctor’s prescription which states medication and quantity carried
• Personal first aid kit (including blister tape, insect repellant, oral rehydration salts, plasters, tweezers, diarrhoea tablets etc)
• Rubbish bag