Essaouira Travel Guide

Essaouira is marvelous town completely reserved for pedestrians; cars have to park outside the city walls; the narrow winding streets seem sometimes to be a maze of confusion, but one makes sense of them fairly quickly. Most of the tourists here are European: Spanish, French, English and German, in that order. The town is blessed with many small inns and gueshouses and several exellent resturants. One of the most fun things I did there was get custom-made pants and shirts. The town is a shopper's paradise. We found a place that carried linen pull-on pants and shirts, but although I liked the style of some, I prefered the fabric in trouser styles I did not care for. The shop owner pulled out a couple of bolts of the fabric I liked, took my measurements and five hours later I had two custom-made pants and a shirt...all for a very reasonable price. We went there from Marrakech by public bus which cost us about $20 for two people. On the way back, we took a taxi; that cost $50. I wanted to return by taxi because there were places I wanted to stop and take pictures. However, traveling in an airconditioned Mercedes taxi was FAR better than being in a hot, stuffy bus.

Turistic place. Most of ppl u will find there are tourists. Small city, situated generally in colonial old town. Looking almost like in Europe. Looking really nice. Windy place, so perfect to practice Kite and Windsurfing. ACCOMODATION: my big recomendation to hotel Smara. Relativelly cheep (104Drh for double room), clean, with extra tarace with view on sea (place for hotrel's brakefasts). If you are looking for Africa or Arabia - run away! All smal streets in medina are covered by tons of souvenires shoops (the best and cheepest souvenirs in Marocco), so that is killing nativ spirit of city and changeing it to touristic courort.

Connue sous le nom de MOGADOR. Essaouira a un charme particulier. Pour y arriver il faut faire de la route (2 h de Marrakech et d'Agadir) mais à l'arrivée la cité des vents vous accueille ! Encore peu connue des touristes car encore mal équipée en hôtels. Pourtant la nonchalence de ses habitants, les souiris, vous font vite aimer cette ville. Pas de boites de nuit, seulement des bars branchés mais surtout la plage et ses kite-surfeurs. Tout tourne autour des sports de glisse, ambiance baba-cool assurée ! C'est une ville où il fait froid (d'après les marocains) et pourtant la température est plus ou moins constante toute l'année (entre 20 et 30 degrés). Il faut savoir apprécier Essaouira : son ciel d'un bleu éclatant, les couleurs de sa médina et surtout sa grande particularité qui est ce mélange des religions. Essaouira est à la fois juive, musulmane et chrétienne ! C'est paut-être ce qui lui donne son côté si accueillant !!