Jewish Heritage Morocco — 10 Days

Land at Casablanca Mohammed V International Airport, where your private Gateway2Morocco driver will be waiting to greet you with a warm welcome. Settle in to your hotel and recover from your journey at your own pace. If you have energy left in the evening, the Corniche of Ain Diab is a five-minute drive — a vibrant seaside boulevard for an easy first walk along the Atlantic.

After breakfast, meet your guide and licensed driver to discover Morocco's largest city. Begin at the magnificent Hassan II Mosque — completed in 1993, partially built over the Atlantic Ocean, and the only mosque in Morocco that opens its doors to non-Muslims. Continue to the Habous Quarter, a French-built 1920s reinterpretation of a traditional medina, home to the King's palace and the famous Bennis pastry shop. After a suggested lunch, stroll Place Mohammed V to admire the Art Deco facades that earned Casablanca its cinematic reputation, and end with a slow walk along the Corniche of Ain Diab, where the Atlantic sets a wide horizon for the evening.

Drive north along the Atlantic to Rabat — Morocco's royal capital — for the Mohammed V Mausoleum (white marble and carved cedar, with Royal Guards on horseback) and the blue-and-white Udayas Kasbah. Continue inland to Volubilis, the UNESCO Roman city covering 40 hectares: 2,000-year-old mosaic floors depicting Orpheus and Bacchus still lie exactly where Roman families once walked, and inscriptions from Volubilis include some of the earliest physical evidence of a Jewish presence in North Africa. Arrive in Fes — Morocco's medieval heart — at sunset.

Fes was the first Moroccan city to designate a separate Jewish quarter — the original Mellah, founded in the 14th century around the Royal Palace for community protection. With your licensed local guide, walk the mellah's distinctive balconied houses (a feature borrowed by the rest of the city centuries later), visit the beautifully restored Aben Danan Synagogue (17th century, with its painted ceiling, mikveh and bimah preserved exactly as they were), and the haunting Jewish cemetery on the hill overlooking the city. After lunch, the rest of Fes el-Bali — the Attarine Medersa, Al-Qarawiyyin University (the world's oldest), and the Chouara Tanneries.

Drive south through Ifrane — the alpine Swiss-style town built by the French Protectorate, with stone chalets and a famous snow-covered lion sculpture. Continue through cedar forests where Barbary macaques roam free, then descend through the Ziz Valley — a river gorge with thousands of date palms creating a green canopy above the arid landscape. Arrive in Erfoud, gateway to the Sahara, at sunset.

Explore Rissani — birthplace of the Alaouite dynasty and once a great terminus of the trans-Saharan trade route, where Jewish caravan-traders connected the Mediterranean to sub-Saharan Africa for centuries. Detour to Khamlia village for a deeply moving Gnawa music performance under a goatskin tent. Then arrive at the edge of Erg Chebbi: 50 kilometres of the most spectacular sand dunes in the world. Mount your camel as the sun begins its descent — the slow rhythm, the dunes turning gold and amber and red. Luxury desert camp awaits: dinner, drumming, ten million stars.

Rise at 5:30am. Climb the dune. Watch the world turn gold. Then travel west through the Berber heartland — past Tinghir's vast date palm oasis (long home to a Jewish community whose synagogue ruins still stand) to Todra Gorge, where sheer 300-metre limestone cliffs create a slot canyon dramatic enough to stop your breath. Continue to the Dades Gorge, a wider valley of sculpted red rock formations. Spend the night in a lodge perched above the valley floor.

Travel the legendary caravan route through Skoura's palm oasis and Ouarzazate's film studios to Aït Ben Haddou — the UNESCO mud-brick fortress filmed by Ridley Scott, Iñárritu, and dozens of others. Walk its thousand-year-old alleys with your guide, past the granaries still in use and the small Jewish quarter at its heart (Aït Ben Haddou had a small but important Jewish trading community well into the 20th century). Cross the Tizi n'Tichka Pass (2,260 m) and descend to Marrakech as the evening lights begin to sparkle below.

Begin with the largest mellah in Morocco — Marrakech's Mellah, founded in 1558 to house the city's Jewish community, who became the sultan's most trusted craftsmen, doctors, and ambassadors. Visit the active Slat Al Azama (Lazama) Synagogue — founded by Spanish exiles in 1492, with its iconic blue-and-white riad courtyard — and the Miaara Jewish Cemetery, the oldest in southern Morocco with whitewashed tombs of celebrated 16th- and 17th-century rabbis. Afternoon: the Saadian Tombs, the opulent Bahia Palace, the medina souks. As dusk falls: Djemaa el-Fna — storytellers, Gnawa musicians, acrobats, and the rising smoke of a hundred food stalls.

A final Moroccan breakfast on the riad terrace, then your private driver takes you to Marrakech Menara Airport. Over ten days you've walked through two thousand years of Jewish heritage — from the Roman foundations of Volubilis, through the medieval mellahs of Fes and Marrakech, to the active synagogues of Casablanca — and seen the country's greatest treasures along the way. Carry it with you.