Essaouira: A Gentle Guide to Morocco's Windy Blue Port

Most visitors meet Essaouira in a hurry — a day trip out of Marrakech, three hours there, three hours back, a plate of grilled fish in between. We would like to make a quieter case: that Essaouira is a place to stay, and that it may be the most comfortable town in Morocco for travelers who no longer want to climb, hurry, or sweat.

The reason is mostly geography. Essaouira sits low and flat on the Atlantic coast of the Marrakech-Safi region, about 180 km west of Marrakech. The trade winds that make it famous among kitesurfers also keep the thermometer honest: while Marrakech bakes, Essaouira stays in the low to mid-twenties Celsius for most of the year. The old town is walled, almost entirely pedestrian, and laid out on a grid rather than a maze — which means you can wander without the low-level anxiety of not finding your way out.

Add a UNESCO-listed medina, a fishing harbour full of blue wooden boats, and a long sandy bay, and you have a town that asks very little of you and gives a great deal back.

A little history

People have been landing on this stretch of coast for a very long time. Archaeology points to a Phoenician trading presence, and the small islands offshore — the Îles Purpuraires — are linked to the ancient production of purple dye. The name Mogador, by which the town was known for centuries, is thought to come from a word meaning a small fort. The Portuguese built one here in 1506 and abandoned it soon after.

The town you walk through today is younger and deliberate. In the 1760s, Sultan Sidi Mohammed ben Abdallah decided to build a new royal port on the site and brought in European engineers, among them the Frenchman Théodore Cornut, to design it. The result is unusual in Morocco: European military fortification in the Vauban manner, wrapped around a thoroughly Moroccan town of kasbah, medina and mellah, built in warm local stone.

For more than a century Mogador was Morocco's window on the world, the port through which caravan goods from the Sahara reached Europe. Its merchant class was strikingly mixed, with a large and influential Jewish community trading alongside Muslim families. The medina was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2001, and the town has kept the calm, slightly faded dignity of a place that was once very important and is now simply itself.

The ramparts of Essaouira, facing the Atlantic.

What to see

Nothing here is far from anything else. A relaxed visitor can see the main sights over two or three mornings without ever taking a taxi.

The ramparts and the Skala de la Ville

The long sea-facing rampart on the north-west side of the medina is Essaouira's signature view: a broad stone walkway lined with old bronze cannons, most of them bought from European foundries, with the Atlantic crashing below and gulls hanging in the wind. Orson Welles filmed the opening of his 1952 Othello along these walls. There are steps up, but the walkway itself is level and generous, with plenty of places to lean and simply watch the water.

The port and the Sqala du Port

The working fishing harbour is the town's beating heart and, for many people, its best hour. Blue-painted wooden boats come and go, nets are mended on the quay, and in the boatyards at the back the same hulls are still built and repaired by hand. The Sqala du Port, the fortified bastion at the harbour entrance, gives a fine view back over the ramparts and rooftops. It is pungent, noisy and entirely genuine — go in the late morning as the catch comes in.

The medina

Essaouira's old town is a rarity: a Moroccan medina you can navigate. The main arteries run more or less straight between the gates, the shops are refreshingly unaggressive, and the specialities are gentle ones — thuya wood boxes and bowls turned from fragrant local root, argan oil, silver, paintings. Wander the side lanes, but always with a main street within a minute's walk.

Bayt Dakira and the mellah

In the old Jewish quarter, Bayt Dakira — the House of Memory — opened in 2020 around the restored Simon Attias Synagogue, built in the 1880s. It tells the story of a community that was once a large share of the town's population, and of a long history of Jewish and Muslim life side by side. It is small, quiet and thoughtfully done.

The beach

The bay sweeps south from the town in a wide, flat arc of sand. Mornings are usually calm and lovely for a stroll; by mid-afternoon the wind picks up and the beach belongs to the kitesurfers, the camels and the football players. A promenade runs along the front, so you can enjoy the view without walking on soft sand.

The fishing port of Essaouira.

The wind, and why it is a gift

Essaouira's nickname is the Windy City, and it is earned. The Atlantic trade winds blow hardest from roughly April to September, strongest in the afternoons of high summer. This is why the town is a world-famous kitesurfing and windsurfing spot.

For the rest of us, the wind is the reason Essaouira is bearable when inland Morocco is not. Summer afternoons here tend to sit around the mid-twenties Celsius while Marrakech pushes far higher, and winter days stay mild rather than cold. The temperature range across the whole year is remarkably narrow.

The practical consequences are small but real. Bring a windproof jacket and a scarf even in August — evenings on the ramparts are genuinely breezy. Choose a sheltered courtyard or a lee-side terrace for lunch. And if you dislike wind-blown sand, walk the beach before noon and leave the afternoon to the kites.

Birds over the beach at Essaouira.

A day trip nearby

If you want one excursion, make it the argan country just inland and the coast just south.

The hills around Essaouira are the heartland of the argan tree, which grows almost nowhere else. Half-day drives take you past groves where goats famously climb into the branches after the fruit, and stop at a women's cooperative where the kernels are still cracked by hand and pressed into oil. It is a short, easy outing: mostly sitting in a car, with brief level stops.

South along the coast, roughly 25–30 km and about 30–40 minutes by road, the village of Sidi Kaouki is a windswept scatter of houses behind a magnificent empty beach. There is little to do beyond lunch, a slow walk and a long look at the ocean, which is precisely the point. Closer still, the small village of Diabat sits just across the river mouth south of town.

Ask your riad to arrange a driver for a half day rather than joining a long group tour; the roads are quiet and the distances short.

Honest advice for comfortable travel

• The town is flat. This is Essaouira's great advantage over Fez, Chefchaouen or Tangier. The medina and seafront involve almost no climbing, and distances within the walls are short — most crossings take 10 to 20 minutes on foot.
• But the ramparts mean stairs. Getting up onto the Skala de la Ville and the Sqala du Port involves flights of stone steps with no lift. The walkways at the top are level. If stairs are difficult, you can still enjoy the walls from the outside and the harbour from the quay.
• Paving is uneven. Stone flags, worn cobbles and the odd step at shop doorways. Sturdy shoes with grip matter more here than they would at home; a walking pole is useful.
• Cars cannot enter the medina. Taxis drop you at a gate such as Bab Doukkala, Bab Marrakech or Bab Sbaa, and you walk the last stretch. Porters with handcarts are available at the gates and are worth every dirham.
• Riads have steep, narrow stairs. Many beautiful old houses have three floors, no lift, and a spiral staircase. Ask explicitly for a ground-floor or first-floor room, or choose a hotel on the seafront or just outside the walls, where lifts are more common and taxis reach the door.
• Pack a wind layer, not just sun cream. The breeze can make 22°C feel cool, especially after sunset. The sun is still strong, so a hat that will not blow away is a sensible purchase.
• The road from Marrakech winds. The last hour crosses hills. If you are prone to travel sickness, sit in the front and take something before setting off.
• Pace the day. Sights in the morning, a long lunch, a rest, then the ramparts at golden hour. Essaouira rewards this rhythm better than almost anywhere.

City walls and gates in Essaouira.

What to eat

Fish, obviously — but fish with a particular Essaouira character.

The simplest and best meal in town is at the grill stalls beside the port, where you choose from the morning's catch laid out on ice — sardines, sea bream, sole, squid, prawns — and it is grilled in front of you with little more than salt, cumin and lemon. Agree the price before it goes on the fire. Sardines are the local staple and are often prepared with chermoula, the green marinade of coriander, parsley, garlic, cumin and paprika.

Essaouira also sits in argan country, and culinary argan oil — darker and nuttier than the cosmetic kind — turns up drizzled over salads or bread. Try amlou, the rich spread of ground almonds, argan oil and honey, at breakfast. Beyond that, expect the Moroccan classics done well: fish tagine with tomato and preserved lemon, harira soup, and mint tea poured from a height at every opportunity.

Two gentle notes. Stick to bottled or filtered water, and if a raw salad worries you, ask for cooked vegetables instead — kitchens here are used to the question.

Small fishing boats in the port of Essaouira.

Getting there

Our verdict

Essaouira is not Morocco's most spectacular town. It has no High Atlas backdrop, no blue-washed staircases, no imperial palaces. What it has is ease — and for travelers in their sixties, seventies and beyond, ease is worth more than spectacle.

You can walk here without climbing. You can breathe without wilting. You can sit on a wall for an hour and watch boats come in, and nobody will hurry you. The medina is small enough to learn in a day and interesting enough to keep you looking on the fifth.

Our advice: do not come as a day trip. Come for three nights, book a room you do not need to climb to, and let the wind set the pace.

“Where Morocco meets the Atlantic, the wind does the walking for you.”

Photo credits

• La ville de Essaouira 0001 04: Yamen, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Ramparts of Essaouira: Kayaky, CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Morocco Essaouira FishingPort: Pawel Ryszawa, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Birds flying in Essaouira beach: Mohamed Moustach, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• "Breite Mauern schützen die Bevölkerung von Essaouira." 03: Holger Uwe Schmitt, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• The fishing port of Essaouira, Morocco: Goldfinchshuffle, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons