Rabat

Rabat — Morocco’s elegant capital city and a UNESCO World Heritage site since 2012 — is one of the country’s most rewarding and least-crowded destinations. Founded in the 12th century by Almohad Sultan Yacoub el-Mansour as a military base for his Atlantic campaigns, Rabat contains monuments of extraordinary ambition: the Hassan Tower, an unfinished minaret begun in 1195 that would have been the tallest mosque in the world at 86 metres, stands beside the gleaming white marble Mausoleum of Mohammed V — one of the finest examples of contemporary Moroccan craftsmanship, completed in 1971. The Kasbah of the Udayas, a 12th-century fortified quarter above the Bou Regreg river estuary, contains a beautifully preserved Andalusian garden and whitewashed streets that drop to the river below. The Chellah Necropolis, a Roman site and medieval Marinid funerary complex on the edge of the modern city, is home to nesting storks and an extraordinary atmosphere at dusk. The Rabat Medina is calm, unharried and genuinely authentic — unlike Marrakech, there is no persistent tourist pressure. The Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art is the finest art museum in North Africa. Rabat is 85km from Casablanca (45 minutes by train), 340km from Marrakech and 320km from Fès.