Atlantic Coast

Morocco’s Atlantic coast stretches from Tangier in the north past Rabat, Casablanca, Essaouira and Agadir to the contested border with Western Sahara, a distance well over 2,000 kilometres. If you’re in the market for year-round sunshine and wide, empty beaches then this is the place to come.

The holiday potential of this vast stretch of shoreline has only recently begun to be explored, at least at a luxury level. One of the trailblazers is La Fiermontina Ocean, an eco-retreat in north-western Morocco, whose delightful suites and villas and traditional stone houses are set back from the beach among olive groves and orchards.

Another is Mazagan Beach & Golf Resort, set on a seven-kilometre beach an hour south of Casablanca in the former Portuguese colony of El Jadida, where old churches and synagogues rub shoulders with mosques and a UNESCO-listed fortress.

Or perhaps you’d like to soak up the sun at La Sultana Oualidia. A little south of El Jadida, La Sultana commands a gorgeous position overlooking a lagoon and sandy surf beaches. Colourful fishing boats chug by all day, flamingos and stilts congregate up the estuary, and low tide reveals the oysters for which the region is rightly famous.