Ben Gammoud, where you will be staying in our bed and breakfast, is a peaceful, rambling village with many old-style buildings and a large teaching mosque and old roads.  The population is a mix of Berbers and Saharan Arabs.  Sidi Bibi is five minutes away and has restaurants, banks and internet cafes.  Nearby towns all have weekly souks, which are treasure troves for shoppers but we advise taking a guide with you, not only for safety but also to help you get best prices.

There is a massive variety of things to buy in the souks from ceramics to leather wear, oranges to cauliflowers, coffee, cakes and spices and the products of local artisans in wood, cloth, pottery and metal.

It takes two and a half hours to drive to Marrakesh on the new motorway,  If your cheap flight lands in Marrakesh you can get a four seater taxi to Agadir for around 900 MAD. 900 MAD (approximately £90) or we can recommend reliable bus companies who charge around £9 for a one-way ticket to Agadir.

OUT & ABOUT

Morocco is a paradise for artists and photographers, a county of unique character and contrasts, a sensual experience of sounds, smells and colours with desert, mountains and fertile valleys.  The indigenous population are the Berbers, a tribal people converted to Islam by the Arabs in the 7th Century, who named Morocco ‘Al Bilad Al Maghrib’ - the western edge.

Nearby Agadir is a fairly modern city as it was destroyed by an earthquake in 1960 and has been largely rebuilt.  The walls around the souk, one of the largest enclosed markets in Morocco, still stand as does a small portion of the old kasbah on the hill overlooking the port.  The city is renowned for its good quality, beachside hotels and night clubs and restaurants.  There is also a large French supermarket and an excellent fish market with long tables where you can eat an excellent platter of mixed seasfood to the accompaniment of local musicians.

A little further north is Tagazhout, the surfing Mecca of Morocco and further north along the seaboard is the migrating- bird stopover lagoon of Tamri behind another good surfing beach.  Half an hour further north is the fishing village of Point Immezuane where there is a legendary break starting way out past the harbour and rolling in to a sandy beach.  Another two hour’s drive over the headlands is the beautiful, walled town of Essaouira with its harbour and artists’ colony.  On the seaboard,  south of Agadir is Tiznit, famous for silver and gold and if you travel further south via Mirleft you arrive at Sidi Ifni, a Spanish enclave with beautiful colonial buildings.  Heading inland you can visit Taroudant, home of the leather industry or travel further to the famous High Atlas passes such as Tiz-n-Test or descend into the beautiful valleys, the most famous local one of which is ParadiseValley, situated at the bottom of the mountain road to Immouzer and reputedly discovered and visited by Jimi Hendrix and Bob Marley. 

GEOLOGY

Morocco is a treasure trove of geological wonders. In our locality alone you can travel from the blow holes in the Jurassic coast north of Agadir to the natural caves, formations and cascades on the road to Immouzer in the foothills of the Atlas Mountains. The road to Immouzer passes through 400 million year old fossil beds and there are many shops along the route selling remarkable examples of huge ammonites and fossilised sea animals.

WEATHER

The weather in the Agadir area during the season September to March is unpredictable. You may have days with blue skies and hot sunshine, rather like an English summer at its best, or, less frequently, days of high winds. Around December there are also days of much-needed rain, after which the tomsin (wheat) begins to sprout, the spring flowers and greenery arrive and the rivers are fed more water and cleansed. The mountains are particularly beautiful at this time. Nights can be cold but we provide warmth with thick, colourful, Berber blankets.

TIFNIT SURF