Morocco: independent travel video, travel photography

Morocco

Al-Maghreb Al Aqsa, "farthest land of the setting sun", as Morocco was called by Arabs, used to be for a long time the window through which Africa and Europe were looking at each other. The image you get looking at Africa in this way, maybe is not the sheer reality about a very diverse and exotic continent but for a long time, the kingdom of Morocco was the "most African you can get" for the Europeans clogging the Parisian salons at the end of the last century. But the exoticism of the country is genuine and even today, the spectacular markets, the medieval cities, the fortified villages across the Atlas, the gorges, and, not to forget, Saqqara are enchanting even the most expecting tourist with their charm and their uniqueness.

The country is split by the Atlas Mountain in two parts which are extremely different. On the western coast are the imperial cities of Rabat, Meknes and Fes, which together with Casablanca, the main city of the country, represent the traditional, very European, and the expected destination for tourism. But if you cross the Atlas Mountains, the landscape and the architecture is changing in such a degree that you do not think that you are in the same country. The citadels (kasbah) and the fortified villages (ksours) made of adobe with their flat roofs, have an architecture which you expected to see in Mali or Mauritania, not here at no more than 300km from Europe. Beside this, the palm tree groves bringing the charm of desert's oasis are puncturing the landscape. Sometimes the destinations you are driving to, are towns which were old French garrisons, forgotten outpost in the desert, reminders of a time of warfare between the Europeans and the Berbers. Merzouga, Ouarzazate, Zagora are this kind of cities.

Come with us and visit them all in our travel video: from Rabat to Meknes , where nearby is the holy city of Moulay Iddriss and the greatest Roman ruin in the whole Africa at Volubilis, to the winding streets of the medieval city of Fes. From there we cross the Atlas Mountains and we go for a sunrise to the ergs of Saqqara, and to the village of Rissani, outpost of the Arab commerce not long time ago, to Goulmina, Todra and Dades Gorge, to Ouarzazate and , on the Vale de Draa, to Zagora, where a famous sign shows that from there, there are only 52 days camel ride to the legendary Timbuktu, and coming back to the magnificent Marrakech, one of the most alive places we ever saw with the fascinatingly alive square Djama El Fna. From there we drive to the coast to Essaouira, the majestic Portuguese colony of Mogador and finish at Casablanca, the new bustling city, a real link between Europe and Africa.