Essaouira (trip to the seaside)

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Arrive into Essaouira stress free..

The usual route to Essaouira is via a SupraTours coach service, which departs from Marrakech Railway Station. We have many guests who’s flight arrives into Marrakech and stay with us for a couple of nights then move onto Essaouira for a seaside holiday and return to us on the evening before their return flight home. This takes the stress out of travel, especially on evening flight arrivals, negating the need to work out the logistics of how to get to their Essaouira destination having landed somewhere in Morocco.

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The Essaouira Medina is home to many small arts and crafts businesses, notably cabinet making and ‘thuya’ wood-carving (using roots of the Tetraclinis tree), both of which have been practised in Essaouira for centuries.

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The fishing harbour is well worth a visit and the catches are abundant. Essaouira remains one of the major fishing harbours of Morocco.

The fish Market is a favorite of mine when you can choose your catch of the day and subsequently have you meal prepared cooked and eaten in-situ.

Essaouira is also renowned for its kitesurfing and windsurfing, with the powerful trade wind blowing almost constantly onto the protected, almost waveless, bay. Several world-class clubs rent top-notch material on a weekly basis. Parasols tend to be used on the beach as a protection against the wind and the blowing sand. Camel excursions are available on the beach and into the desert.

Additionally, there are quad biking excursions, cookery courses, photographic excursions and Berber massages available for the active visitor.

Essaouira presents itself as a city full of culture: several small art galleries are found all over the town. Since 1998, the Gnaoua Festival of World Music is held in Essaouira, normally in the last week of June. It brings together artists from all over the world. Although focussed on gnaoua music, it includes rock, jazz and reggae. Dubbed as the “Moroccan Woodstock” it lasts four days and attracts annually around 450,000 spectators.

In the early 1950s film director and actor Orson Welles stayed at the Hotel des Iles just south of the town walls during the filming of his 1952 classic version of “Othello” which contains several memorable scenes shot in the labyrinthine streets and alleyways of the medina. Legend has it that during Welles’s sojourn in the town he met Winston Churchill, another guest at the Hotel des Iles. Orson Welles’s bust is located in a small square just outside the medina walls close to the sea. Several other film directors have utilised Essaouira’s photogenic and atmospheric qualities.

Well worth a visit.

Riad Lunetoile

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Riad Lunetoile / Essaouira Holiday accommodation / guesthouse / B+B
Sea-Facing Terrace
Also whole Riad To Rent Essaouira

Many of Riad Laksiba’s guests, who come to Marrakech for a week or ten days, ask if it is possible for us to organise an overnight adventure for them to the coast. Sue Hunt, the British owner of Riad Lunetoile, does her very best to accommodate a sleepover, a couple of nights or the mid-part of travellers holiday’s. The feedback, from Guests, has always been positive and it is suggested that there is a complimentary synergy between Riad Laksiba in Marrakech and Riad Lunetoile in Essaouira.

If you do fancy a sleepover or couple of nights etc. at the Seaside then we can point you in Sue’s dirction so you can make direct contact and add detail to your adventure planning.

Submit yourself to a gentle introduction to true Moroccan hospitality, mixed with a little European comfort, and spiced up with a few Indian accessories. Enjoy all, that the Orient, has to offer, whilst still being in Africa! Sip mint tea from our sea-facing, rooftop terrace and listen to the waves of the Atlantic Ocean, crashing onto the rocks, whilst you let yourself drift into the mysteries of this far-away, Arabic, land.

4 BEDROOMS (2 WITH PRIVATE BATHROOMS AND 2 WHICH SHARE THE SAME BATHROOM) PLUS A COMPLETE APARTMENT ON THE 3rd FLOOR, WHICH HAS AN OPTIONAL EXTRA BEDROOM.