Essaouira

A walled Atlantic port city in western Morocco whose 18th-century medina and Portuguese-influenced ramparts were designed in part by European military engineers, giving it an unusually regular grid plan within the surrounding Moroccan medina typology. The broad beach south of the ramparts is exposed to consistent Atlantic trade winds that make it one of the premier windsurfing and kitesurfing sites on the African Atlantic coast. The blue-painted wooden fishing boats moored in the working harbour and the weathered cannons atop the seafront bastions are photographic subjects associated with the city. The old mellah and artisan quarters produce marquetry in local thuya wood.