day trip to Ait Ben Haddou

Distance:  400km     Time on the road: 5h 30min 

The Moroccan ighrem of Ait-Benhaddou is located along the old caravan route from the Sahara to Marrakech. Four families continue to reside in the historic town, but the remainder of the residents are attracted by the tourism industry and live in more contemporary homes on the opposite side of the river.

This enormous fortification, which is made up of six kasbahs (forts) and almost fifty palaces (individual forts), is a superb illustration of earthen clay architecture, a material also used in Moroccan architecture. At Benhaddou has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1987, and many movies have been filmed there.