Essaouira

Essaouira (pronounced ‘essa-weera’, or ‘es-Sweera’ in Arabic) is at once familiar and exotic with its fortified walls, fishing harbour and seagulls soaring and screaming over the town. At first it seems as though this could be a town in Brittany, France – not such a strange thought given that Essaouira was designed by the same Frenchman who designed Brittany’s most famous port town, Saint-Malo. And yet once you enter the walls, it is also infinitely Moroccan: narrow alleyways, the wind that reputedly drives people crazy, the smells of fish guts and damp sea air mixed with the aroma of spices and thuya wood, women in white haiks(veils), the midday shadow reflection of the palm trees on the red city walls, and the sound of drums and Gnawa singing that reverberates from shops and houses.