Itinerary

1. Day 1: Arrive in Casablanca

   • Depending upon your time of arrival, you will be driven to your hotel/riad to loosen up and have a rest. You might like to figure out some of Casablanca’s sights; the architectural masterpiece, Hassan II Mosque that was completed in the 90s, overlooks the Atlantic Ocean and has a retractable roof to let in sunlight, and one of few mosques that Jews are accorded the rare opportunity to enter.

2. Day 2: Casablanca Visit

   • Enjoy your first day of pilgrimage tour of the Jewish legacy in Morocco. Casablanca is a good place to start a grounding pilgrimage tour of the Jewish legacy. Your most vivid memory will be of your visit to Beth El and Eim Habanim synagogues which are not the only synagogues in Casablanca.
   • Move to the only Jewish museum in the Islamic world, the Moroccan Judaism Museum, where you’ll discover the Jewish-Berber costumes and jewellery, and you’ll find among its walls 2000-year history reflected on art, ornate clothing, religious relics and artifacts, besides a photo and video library, and rooms with partial reproductions of synagogues. This place was once, before renewing, serving as a Jewish orphanage.
   • Discover the last Moroccan Jewish day school, Neve Shalom and Casablanca’s Jewish Mellah and Jewish Cemetery.
   • You can have lunch in one of many kosher restaurants, and later on, in the afternoon, you might like to have a drink in the Tahiti Beach club that once was a local Jewish hangout.

3. Day 3: Casablanca to Azemmour to Essaouira

   • Explore Jimi Hendrix’s town. But before we get there, we’ll stop over at Azemmour, the charming former Portuguese fortified town on the great Oum Er-Rabia river 75 km from Casablanca that was once embracing 2500 Jews residents in its white clifftop historic old town during the 15 century. Here, we’ll discover the historic sites, Riads, and shrines, and we’ll experience a different pace of life.
   • Afternoon, when you’re in Essaouira, you’re free to roam in the city that was once and still a haven for hippie backpackers and Gnawa musicians. You can start your visit by the ramparts, a series of forts that were built in the 15th century around the Medina of Mogador. Inside the Medina, you’ll have the chance to visit the Mellah, where two-thirds of the population settled in the 19 century, as well as Bayt Dakira, a spiritual and heritage space that seeks to preserve and enhance the Judeo-Moroccan memory. Each year in Sept, more than 2000 Jews from all over the world meet at the grave of Rabbi Chaim Pinto, who was, in the 16th-century Jewish cemetery, well-known for his ability to perform miracles.
   • Have a delicious fish meal at Essaouira’s port, Morocco’s 3rd fishing port. For sports-oriented travellers, Essaouira is a place to some fine wind and kitesurfing schools.

4. Day 4: Essaouira to Marrakech

   • If you did not get to explore the sights of Essaouira the day before, you’d be able to do it this morning before you leave east for Marrakech. It is highly recommended to walk through the narrow alleyways of Essaouira, where you will notice the painted houses that still have the Star of David above the doorways of Jewish houses, besides, even in its boat-lined port, look up at the symbols carved out on the harbour’s gate. A Jewish star rests inside a scallop shell often associated with Christian pilgrims next to Islam’s symbolic crescent moon. Although the number of permanent Jewish residents has dwindled, their marks don’t fade.
   • Leave Essaouira after lunch and overnight stay in Marrakech.

5. Day 5: Marrakech Visit

   • You’ll have all day long to carry on your Morocco Jewish legacy cultural tour with your private guided tour as in other cities. You’ll be able to explore the famed Jamaa El-fnaa square and the highly recommended sites such as the newly opened Yves Saint Laurent Museum, the enchanting Majorelle garden, Berber Museum, and the famed Jamaa El Fnaa square where the crazed cacophony of musicians, snake charmers, storytellers are performing.
   • Visit the narrow alleyways of the nearby Mellah, which is worth a walk. Jewish stars punctuate doorposts leading to the tiny blue-and-white Lazama that was constructed by Jews escaping from Spain in 1492, and it’s recently opened for the public. Lazama synagogue has an interior courtyard and displays photographs and artifacts of Moroccan Jews. The tour also includes the Saadian Tombs and the Bahia and El Badi Palace.

6. Day 6: Marrakech to Ait Benhaddou to Ouarzazate to Valley of Roses to Dades Gorges

   • Around 8:00 am, your driver/tour guide will pick you up from the nearest point of your hotel/riad. Through Tizi- N’Tichka pass (2260m) in the High Atlas Mountains, you will enjoy a snaky windy road (if you get car sick, have your medication), beautiful landscapes with different colours Berber villages along the way.
   • Stop in Ait Barka village. It will be around 10:00 am to take beautiful pictures and have a cup of mint tea. It’s a point to start the highest Atlas Mountains of Morocco. 
   • The second pause will take place at the top of Tizi n’Tichka arriving at Ait Benhaddou, the 11th century UNESCO-protected red mud-brick ksar that has formed the backdrop for many Hollywood movies productions as Lawrence of Arabia, Jesus of Nazareth, Gladiator, Game of Thrones and many others. Here you will also have time to explore the history of this amazing heritage.
   • Have lunch before continuing via Ouarzazate, Hollywood studio and Taourirte Kasbah. 
   • Traverse the valley of roses and daggers straight to Dades gorges a rust-red and mauve mountains. A series of crumbling Kasbahs and Ksours line the valley in the Berber villages to the monkey Fingers Mountains.

7. Day 7: Dades Gorges to Todgha Gorges to Tinjdad to Erfoud to Rissani to Merzouga Desert

   • This morning, you head southeast towards Merzouga and the gateway into the golden dunes of the Sahara desert. Before getting there, you’ll be hugged between gigantic rock walls, and a hard place is a sublime experience in the Todgha gorges.
   • Then it’s onward to Tinjdad, where a local Berber culture museum is worth a lunch stop. Later on, after lunch, we head to Erfoud, where you can marvel at the million-year-old fossils that the area is famous for.
   • Head off to Merzouga that has the highest dunes in Morocco; you can store any luggage while packing an overnight bag to bring along. 
   • You’ll have the chance to ride your camel into the sandy seas. After an hour-long camel ride, you will be among the luckiest to watch the sunset over the Sahara dunes.

   Your stay for the night will be a Bedouin-style tent.

8. Day 8: Merzouga Desert to Midelt to Ifran to Fes

   • This morning you’ll wake up with the sun shining on your face to witness what we hope is a glorious sunrise among the dunes, meanwhile to watch the light creep slowly down the dunes and pull all the world around you outside their warmth heavy mound of blankets for an early-breakfast.
   • After an hour-ride camelback out of the desert, you will depart and head for Ifran through the Ziz Valley, among the largest producer oasis dates in Morocco. En-route, we will stop for lunch with a local family in Midelt.
   • Savour lunch and pass through the cedar forests of Ifran, the Switzerland of Morocco; if lucky, you’ll come across the Barbary macaques on our way to Fes where you can prepare for tomorrow’s amazing tour in its mysteries and secrets of the 9000 alleyways that make it a maze, do not panic the guide will show the must-see sites.

9. Day 9: Fes Medina Tour

   • With your private Fes born and bred guide, you will have the opportunity to discover the ancient breeding ground for scholars and artisans and the largest medina of the world. You will see the America Fondouk, Nejjarines, the Tanneries and Karaouine, the most ancient university in the world.
   • Your guide will shed light on many tales and the history of this UNESCO-protected Medina. For Jews, it is highly recommended to scout about the winding streets to 1438 Morocco’s oldest Mellah with its Spanish inspired Jewish balconies and windows faced outward the streets. The Jewish quarter also has 17th-century synagogues, Slat Al Fassiyine. 
   • In addition, visit the Aben Danan Synagogue, which has unique features, and Beit Hachaim, the most famous resting place for rabbis, Local jews.

10. Day 10: Fes to Meknes to Fes

    • Visit the lesser-visited Imperial city of Meknes. Today we will have the chance to see the famed gate Bab El Mansour, Dar Jamai Palace and Museum, the royal stables, Hedim square and Moulay Ismail tomb.
    • Through the narrow lanes to the Mellah where the Jewish families used to live and to Jewish Zawiya where is the grave of Rabbi David Benmidan. 30 min driving away of Meknes is one of the earliest signs of Jewish existence is still struggling the age, Volubilis, a remarkable and fascinating archaeological site. Former Roman ruins hidden among the intricate mosaics and rows of standing columns and building facades, excavators found a tombstone with Hebrew inscriptions dating back to the second century.

11. Day 11: Fez to Sefrou to Chechaouen

    • Say goodbye to the city of Sophism, and drive south of Fes towards Sefrou, the little Jerusalem, as it is known due to its high percentage of Jews. It was once a meeting point of traders from around the world.  The town hosted among its walls the Jewish settlers present since the 13th century. Upon Morocco’s independence, Little Jerusalem’s Mellah makes up half of the old city. If you want to discover more of the Mellah, you might like to cross Aggie's river and walk through alleyways to get to a large school, the synagogue, and a cemetery holding the tombs of important saints merchants, and flood victims. When you finish your visit to the medina, we will drive out of Fes to have delicious local food in Lalla Fatiha’s house
    • In the afternoon, your driver/guide will drive you towards the blue city where you’re going to spend your night and visit it tomorrow morning.

12. Day 12: Chefchaouen to Rabat

    • From coastal towns to the south and get to the north, you will spend this morning in Chaouen before leaving for Rabat. Chefchaouen, Chaouen or the blue city as it is known internationally. It was a refuge for Muslims and Jews escaping from the Spanish Reconquista. The presence of Jews remains evident in vivid blue washed walls of each house and corner of the city. The blue colour covering the walls is a Jewish tradition of weaving prayer shawls with tekhelel (an ancient natural blue dye) representing the sky, the sea and God’s inescapable presence.
    • In addition to this, enjoy roaming arbitrary in the city.
    • After having lunch, we head to the Capital of Morocco – Rabat.

13. Day 13: Rabat

    • In every inch of Morocco, you can catch the footprints of Morocco’s once vibrant Jewish life in glimpses. 
    • In Rabat, you will have a free day to explore the city, first through the monumental Hassan tower with the pillared stumps of its mosque being all that remains from the earthquake of 1755. There is also the nearby Mausoleum of the royal family. 
    • And do not miss walking through the passenger ways of the Medina and Mellah to have a cup of mint tea in red Oudayas, a walled village within a city.

14. Day 14: Casablanca Departure

    • Your pilgrimage to the Jewish Legacy and reconnection with your roots is coming to an end today, and we sincerely hope that you refreshed and enjoyed your Morocco Jewish Legacy Cultural Tour with us.