Morocco Hotels

Morocco is a North African country that has a coastline on both the North Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. It has borders with Mauritania to the south, Algeria to the east and the Spanish North African territories of Ceuta and Melilla on the Mediterranean coast in the north.

It is just across the Strait of Gibraltar from Gibraltar .rocco's long struggle for independence from France ended in 1956. The internationalized city of Tangier was turned over to the new country that same year. Morocco virtually annexed Western Sahara during the late 1970s, and even though the status of the territory remains unresolved, the government is trying to conceal this, e.g. on all maps in Morocco, Western Sahara is drawn as an integrated part of the country.

The biggest event on the Moroccan calendar is the month of Ramadan, during which Muslims fast during the daytime and feast at night. Most restaurants are closed for lunch with the exception of those catering specifically to tourists and things generally slow down. Traveling during this time is entirely possible, and the restrictions don't apply to non-Muslims, but it's respectful to refrain from eating, drinking or smoking in public during the fast.

At the end of the month is the holiday of Eid al-Fitr, when practically everything closes for as long as a week and transport is packed as everybody heads back to their home village. Morocco has always been a crossroads between Africa, Europe and the Middle East, and nowhere evokes this sense more than Tangier, that faded poster boy for Europe's often decadent but sometimes creative presence on Moroccan shores. From Tangier turn south alongMorocco's Atlantic Coast and you'll be accompanied by a sea breeze that massages the ramparts of wonderful cities whose names Essaouira, Casablanca, Asilah, Rabat and atmosphere carry a whiff of African magic.

Travel east along the Mediterranean coast and you'll be bidden into enchanting towns and the mountains of the Rif. Morocco is sensory overload at its most intoxicating, from the scents and sounds that permeate the medians of Fes and Marrakesh to the astonishing sights of the landscape. If it's mountains you love, Morocco has them in abundance, rising from the Rif into the Middle Atlas and on into the extraordinary contours of the High Atlas.

This is land custom-built for trekking as you follow quiet mountain trails amid Berber villages and fields of flowers. Then, suddenly, everything changes. The mountains fissure into precipitous gorges the colour of the earth, mud-brick Kasbahs turn blood-red with the setting sun and the sense that one has stumbled into a fairytale takes hold. From rocky fortresses such as these, the Sahara announces its presence in Morocco with perfectly sculpted seas of sand. At journey's end, the solitude of the Sahara is ideal for contemplating why it is that Morocco has such cachet. The answer is simple: there is no place on earth quite like it.