MARRAKECH, ESSAOUIRA, THE DESERT, THE OASES, THE ATLAS, THE KASBAHS
15 nights fully inclusive for 2 - 6 guests EU4575 pp sharing EU4775 solo traveler
FULLY INCLUSIVE APART FROM BEVERAGES SIPPED IN RESTAURANTS
These holidays are planned to begin with Sunday arrivals, so we can take in the market days when "Cooking in a Berber Village Courtyard" and that of th first day of the road trip.. As this holiday is just for you, we can see what can be swung around, should you prefer to arrive on another day, other than Sunday. We recommend that all our guests fly into Marrakech from Europe and not via Casablanca. We have glorious add-ons in Sardinia, Barcelona, Madrid, Naples and Crete.. these cities make the perfect beginning or finale to the wonder of here..Qatar flies from many Australian cities into Marrakech!
Airport transfers and all meals and wines coffee, tea and water
8 nights at the House of Fusion Marrakech
7 night road trip
Shopping Extravaganza & lunch of a Tasting Menu of Moroccan Charcuterie
The day in Essaouira, beginning with a camel ride along the beach, lunch (beverages extra) and shopping
Degustation Dinner Menu in the palmeraie
Dinner upon a nearby terrace with wicked desserts
2 cooking classes at the House of Fusion
1 cooking class in a High Atlas Berber village
1 cooking class with a tribal desert family
Arrival Day
Welcome Feast and Moroccan wines with a wicked cocktail to begin
Day 2 Feasting Day Cooking Class a lunch and dinner class of 10 dishes. Wines with dinner. Discussion over breakfast coffee as to the day's menu, the shopping list in Arabic before setting off for the nearby souk to shop in your new language. It's then a day of prepping and swooning!
Day 3 Shopping Extravaganza to Hidden Places Holding Hearts' Desires with Lunch
Dinner - a lovely terrace serving glorious food with fabulous desserts to end a fabulous day!
Day 4 Today it's an early breakfast before setting off for a day along the High Atlas, Tizn Test Pass, making a tiny detour to buy the most
wonderful msmmn, dripping olive oil, to swoon over in the car, on the way to our next stop to picnic morning tea in hidden fields!
Then it's on to the weekly traders' market, to shop for lunch, cooked traditionally, in our over coals class,
"Cooking in a Berber Village Courtyard", in an earth home, in a tiny hidden, olive growing, hamlet.
Before heading for home, we will stroll the 12C Tinmal mosque, which we can almost always, guarantee to have to ourselves!
Tapas dinner in the riad with wines awaits in the riad
Day 5 THE ROAD TRIP TO THE DESERT BEGINS! ALL ACCOMMODATION HAS A PRIVATE BATHROOM, EVEN IN THE DESERT...THE OASIS AND THE
DESERT HAVE SWIMMING POOLS...
We will picnic morning tea beside salt pans, scooping salt into containers for our flavoured salt class upon our return to Marrakech!
We will stop at the weekly traders' market for wondrous pastries to have in the car,as we journey on..we will picnic lunch where we
will, arriving in the most amazing setting that is the oasis, for two nights. We will wine and dine, terrace top, under the stars before
bed, in charming accommodation where the luxury is in the setting rather than marble bathrooms!
Day 6 This morning we will drive a short distance to the remote,"Babel village" to walk this oasis where once there was Brad. DO watch the movie, "Babel", prior to coming to Morocco! It is a special village with an ancient kasbah inside which, people still live. Washing day in this ancient setting, is every day and we always take a gift of Omo for the ladies.
This hidden away area, is famous for carpet weaving and it is here you will be able to buy a treasure directly, from the loom..we will take tea in one of these earth and stone homes with some of the ladies who weave..
Lunch will be where we are invited and it's always wonderful!
The remaining afternoon hours, will be spent back at the auberge, ,relaxing or with an afternoon walk across the river. Dinner and wine, terrace top again, under the stars.
Day 7 The road to the desert traveling through astonishing scenery, rock mountain scapes, the Draa Valley with its kasbahs and
palmeraie snaking all the way to Mautitania, until verdant gives way to stony desert and finally the orange sands of the Sahara. We
will lunch at Nkob and continue up the middle of Morocco to Rissani where we will include the market for scarf shopping and maybe some date syrup and pastes... soon turn off the road for the bumpy trip to the wonderful auberge up the sands. You will sleep here
for two nights and journey by camel to your, camp from here. There is a glorious pool, if you would love to swim in this surreal setting of the Sahara abutting poolside.
Day 8 This morning it is off to the desert family where you will 'Cook up a Desert Storm' with Fatima and her daughters, prepping in the the courtyard kitchen and walking the mellah, the food of this region, to the community oven beside the front door. Once back at the auberge, there is time to relax before donning your scarves, climbing into a 4 x 4 to travel a short distance to where your camels will be waiting to take you on a 90 minute ride to camp, for dinner and the night.
Day 9 A pre-dawn climb of the dunes to be dune top for sunrise. Here you will straddle the top of the dune as the sun wakes up the Sahara. Breathtaking.. you will breakfast in the camp before climbing onto your camel once more for the ride back to the 4 x 4 and onwards to the auberge. Today will indeed be a lazy one, lolling around the pool and maybe some holiday diary writing with Edwina and
venturing, if you wish, across the sands for sundown.
Day 10 We leave after breakfast for the kasbah in the valley of the roses. After Rissani, the road is all new to you as we pass through
mountain scape and valleys, stopping along the way for lunch under shady vines. This afternoon after arriving at the kasbah we will have a wonderful walk through abandoned kasbahs and fields groaning with nut and fruit trees beside the river. Tonight it's dinner and wine, in the kasbah.
Day 11 After a leisurely breakfast terrace top, we leave on our spectacular Hidden Gorge Picnic Day and wine, climbing mountains that seemingly touch the sky, past earth built villages and valleys filled with crops. Today you will walk the gorge in shoes you care not if they get wet. We take things for the children who live in this wonderful area, miles from everywhere. We will send you a list of some suggested things for you to pack. We will call in to the shops not far from the kasbah should you long to buy some rose creams..
Day 12 Off we go to Marrakech over the Tizn Tichka stopping for a BBQ lunch where the village is full of roadside butchers with BBQs to cook what we choose. Dinner and wine, awaits in the riad..
Day 13 A lazy day beginning with brunch in the riad and then the 11.30am bus to the Anima Gardens..
4pm a hammam and massage
Dinner and wine tonight, in the palmeraie
Day 14 Tanjia, Soup & Pastry Class a lunch and dinner class beginning with the prepping of the tanjia to take to the local hammam for
cooking all afternoon, in the coals. Tanjia is a Marrakechi dish, nowhere else in Morocco, are the hammam coals used in this way.
The afternoon free to shop, relax or stroll..
Day 15 The day in Essaouira a Portugese settled port where we will lunch terrace top against the Atlantic and shop in
converted ships' chandlers
Tapas and wine, tonight in the riad
Day 16 Fondly farewelling ....