A beautiful seaside city is less than a four-hour direct flight from the UK and it’s almost 30C in April.
Essaouira is a port city in western Morocco and is known as the “Wind City of Africa” due to its high coastal winds.
Lonely Planet said that this has allowed it to “retain its traditional culture and character” as high winds mean it’s not popular among beach tourists. Instead, the city’s sandy beach attracts lots of windsurfers and kitesurfers between April and November.
In the spring and autumn, many come to the city to wander “the spice-scented lanes and palm-lined avenues of the fortified medina”. In it, there are many galleries, boutiques and shops to explore.
The old city, known as the Medina of Essaouira, is designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site due to it being “an exceptional example of a late-18th-century fortified town, built according to the principles of contemporary European military architecture in a North African context”.
Tourists may recognise the sea-facing ramparts of the 18th-century Skala de la Ville and the Bastion Nord in the medina. They had a role in Game of Thrones as the city of Astapor.
There is also a hugely atmospheric port filled with sea-blue wooden boats where visitors can watch fishing nets being mended and traditional boats being constructed.
Just off the coast of the city are two islands called Ile de Mogador. They are uninhabited to provide protection for the rare Eleonora’s falcons, with permission to land on the islands hard to obtain.
Visitors to Essaouira have called it a “must-see” with lovely people, food, clothes, prices and weather. Many said it was a “smaller, tidier, more relaxed” version of Marrakech, with lanes to explore and the added bonus of being by the sea.
They were known as the Purple Isles by the Romans due to their high population of molluscs. The snail’s mucus was used to make purple dye for imperial togas.
The dye was expensive and time-consuming to make, thus items coloured by it became associated with wealth and power, making purple a colour for the elite.
The city is warm year-round, with an average summer temperature of 22C and winter temperature of 11C.
Ryanair operates direct flights from London Stansted to Essaouira, with tickets starting from £18 for a one-way ticket. There are a number of places to stay in and around the city, from hotels to holiday lets.
