Azrou and the Cedar Forest: Morocco's Quiet Mountain Air

Most visitors to Morocco go straight from Fès to the desert, and the road carries them right past one of the country's gentlest pleasures without stopping. That is a shame, because an hour and a half south of Fès the plains fold upward into the Middle Atlas, the air turns thin and clean, and the horizon fills with cedar trees the size of cathedrals.

Azrou is the town at the heart of it. Its name means "rock" in Amazigh, after the dark volcanic outcrop that still stands in the middle of the streets. It is a working mountain town of around 58,000 people at roughly 1,250 metres, with a Tuesday market, red-tiled roofs, cedar-wood workshops and almost none of the pressure that tires people out in the big imperial cities.

For travelers over 60, the appeal is very practical. This is the coolest corner of central Morocco in summer, the walking is flat or gently sloping if you choose your spot, and the single best thing to do here — sitting quietly among 400-year-old cedars watching wild monkeys — requires no stairs, no scrambling and no stamina at all.

A little history

Azrou has been an Amazigh (Berber) settlement for centuries, a meeting point where the pastoral tribes of the Middle Atlas came down to trade with the Arabic-speaking plains around Meknès and Fès. Shepherding and weaving shaped the place long before tourism did, and both are still visible today.

The town took its modern shape during the French protectorate, when it served as an administrative and military centre and gained a reputation well beyond its size. Azrou was home to the Collège Berbère, the first secondary school established in a Berber-speaking region of Morocco, created to train Moroccan administrators; it survives today as a lycée under a different name. A short distance outside town, Benedictine monks founded the monastery of Toumliline in 1952, which for over a decade hosted unusual gatherings bringing Christians, Jews and Muslims together before it closed in the late 1960s. Its ruins still sit above the valley.

The forest itself carries a colonial trace in its name: the Cèdre Gouraud forest, on the road between Azrou and Ifrane, is named after a French general. Today the whole area falls within Ifrane National Park, some 125,000 hectares of cedar and holm oak that protect a very large share of the world's remaining Atlas cedar and Barbary macaques.

A goatherd and Barbary macaques in the cedar forest near Azrou — the forest is still grazing land.

What to see

The Cèdre Gouraud forest

This is the reason to come. A short drive northeast of Azrou, on the road toward Ifrane, the Atlas cedars close in on both sides — huge, grey-barked, some of them centuries old, with trunks several people could not encircle. There is a car park, picnic tables and level ground, so you can be standing under the biggest trees within a minute of leaving the car. The most photographed tree, a vast cedar that died in the early 2000s, still stands like a monument.

The town and the Tuesday souk

Azrou's medina is small, low and unpretentious, built around the rock that gave the town its name. The weekly souk, traditionally held on Tuesday, pulls in farmers and shepherds from villages across the Middle Atlas: wool, vegetables, olives, livestock, mountain honey. It is a real working market rather than a tourist attraction, which is exactly its charm.

Carpets and cedar wood

Azrou is known for Middle Atlas weaving — thick, warm, geometric wool carpets made for cold mountain winters rather than for hot souks — and for cedar-wood carving. The town's artisan centre and various cooperatives are the easiest place to see both, and prices are generally calmer here than in Fès.

Viewpoints over the valley

The roads climbing out of Azrou open up long views back over the red roofs and the dark green forest beyond. You do not need to hike for this; several pull-offs on the way toward Ifrane or toward Midelt give you the whole panorama from the car.

Atlas cedars (Cedrus atlantica) in the forest at Azrou, inside Ifrane National Park.

Meeting the Barbary macaques, kindly

The cedar forest around Azrou is home to troops of Barbary macaques — the only monkey native to North Africa, and the only macaque species living outside Asia. They are genuinely wild, they are used to cars and people, and they will often be sitting in the clearings by the road when you arrive.

They are also endangered. Numbers have fallen sharply over recent decades, and the biggest visible problem is the roadside habit of feeding them peanuts and biscuits for photographs, which damages their health and pulls them onto the tarmac where they are hit by cars.

So the kind way to enjoy them is simple:

• Do not feed them, and politely decline the bags of nuts sold at the roadside.
• Keep a few metres of distance and never try to touch or hold one.
• Keep food, plastic bags and shiny objects out of sight and inside the car.
• Sit still and wait — within ten minutes you will usually see far more natural behaviour than anyone waving snacks ever does.

Watching a troop groom each other under a 30-metre cedar, with nothing to do and nowhere to be, is one of the quietly great half-hours in Morocco.

Barbary macaques in the cedar forest at Azrou.

A day trip nearby

Ifrane

About 15 to 20 km northeast of Azrou, roughly 20 to 30 minutes by road, Ifrane is one of the strangest and most comfortable towns in Morocco: a planned resort built in the protectorate era with steep alpine roofs, dormer windows and tidy gardens, nicknamed "Little Switzerland". It is spotlessly clean, flat, easy to walk, and full of cafés with terraces — an ideal spot for a relaxed lunch. The stone lion sculpture at its centre is the obligatory photograph.

Dayet Aoua

A further 15 km or so north of Ifrane, at around 1,460 metres, Lake Dayet Aoua sits in a shallow bowl ringed by forest. It is a birdwatching lake, popular for picnics, and its water level varies a good deal with the season — in dry years it can shrink substantially, so treat it as a pleasant stop on a loop rather than a destination in itself.

The classic outing is a slow circuit: Azrou, the cedar forest, Ifrane for lunch, Dayet Aoua, and back. Allow half a day at an unhurried pace, and note that the drive itself — cherry orchards, sheep, forest — is half the pleasure.

The road from Azrou to Ifrane, with cherry trees in blossom before the cedar forest.

Honest advice for comfortable travel

• Altitude and air. At roughly 1,250 m, Azrou is high enough to feel cool and to leave you a little short of breath on slopes, but far too low to cause altitude sickness. Take hills slowly for the first day.
• Heat is not the problem here — cold is. While Fès and Meknès bake in July and August, Azrou stays noticeably cooler and evenings can be genuinely chilly. From November to March bring a proper coat; snow falls regularly in midwinter and can briefly close forest roads.
• The forest is easy if you let it be. The main cedar sites have car parks, level clearings and flat gravel paths. You can see the great trees and the macaques with almost no walking. Longer forest tracks exist for those who want them, on gentle gradients, but nothing obliges you.
• Ground underfoot. Cedar needles, pine cones and loose stones make the forest floor uneven in places. Shoes with grip are worth more here than anywhere else in Morocco, and a walking pole helps.
• Where to stay. Sleeping in Azrou or Ifrane means you reach the forest in 10 to 20 minutes, in the soft early light when macaques are most active. Doing it as a day trip from Fès means three hours in the car — fine for one day, tiring on consecutive days. Ifrane has the flattest, quietest streets for evening strolls.
• Hire a car with a driver. There is no comfortable public transport to the forest itself. A car and driver for the day from Fès or Azrou removes all the awkwardness and lets you stop wherever the view is good.
• Facilities. Azrou and Ifrane have pharmacies, cash machines and clinics; the forest itself has toilets at the main site but little else. Carry water and any medication with you.
• Sun and dust. Mountain sun at this altitude is stronger than it feels. A hat and sunscreen matter even on a cool day.

Level ground under the cedars at Azrou, where the forest can be enjoyed with very little walking.

What to eat

Middle Atlas cooking is mountain food: warming, generous and less sweet than the cuisine of the imperial cities.

Tagine is everywhere, and the version you will meet most often here is beef or lamb slow-cooked with prunes and almonds — rich, soft, and easy on teeth and digestion. Chicken with preserved lemon and olives is the other reliable standard.

The surprise is trout. Cold mountain streams and fish farms in the hills around Azrou and Ifrane supply fresh trout to local restaurants, grilled simply or occasionally smoked. After a week of tagine, it is a genuine relief.

The region is also orchard country: cherries and apples grow all around Azrou and Ifrane, and in early summer the roadside stalls are piled with them. Add harira soup on a cold evening, fresh bread from wood-fired ovens, mountain honey, and mint tea poured from a great height in a café with a view of the cedars, and you have eaten well.

For tender stomachs, this is an easy region: dishes are simple, cooked long and served hot. Stick to bottled water, as you would anywhere in Morocco.

Getting there

Our verdict

Azrou will not impress anyone with monuments. There is no great mosque to queue for, no medina that takes three days to understand, no famous blue or red or golden colour scheme. What it offers instead is space, silence, cool air and very old trees — and for many travelers over 60, that is the more valuable commodity.

It also works beautifully as a pause. Two nights here between Fès and the desert, or between Fès and Marrakech, breaks up long driving days, resets your body after the intensity of the medina, and gives you an afternoon among wild monkeys and thousand-year-old forest that costs almost no physical effort.

Go for the cedars. Stay for the light through them at six in the evening, when the forest goes gold and completely quiet. Then come down to the town for trout and mint tea, and count it among the easiest good days you will have in Morocco.

“Some places ask you to climb; Azrou only asks you to sit down under a cedar and listen.”

Photo credits

• Azrou Maroc: Pierre GAYET Pierrottweiler, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Cedar Forest near Azrou - Goatherd and Monkeys - panoramio: Adrian Farwell, CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Ifrane National Park cedar forest: Reda Abouakil, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Azrou macaque monkeys in the cedar forest 54243668983: Jorge Franganillo, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Ifrane 040: Reda Abouakil, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Azrou cedar forest 54242536382: Jorge Franganillo, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons