Monday, 12 September 2011

My Morocco Diary - Ait Benhaddou via El Kelaa des M'Gouna

Day 9: Drive to Ait Benhaddou via El Kelaa des M’Gouna & the ‘Valley of 1000 Kasbahs’
Got up and out early this morning and headed to the weekly market at Tinehir before driving westwards. 
El Kelaa des M’Gouna lies at the foot of a rocky outcrop that separates the Dades and Mgoun Valleys where we stopped to visit a rose farm and factory. Famed for its roses, the town lies blanketed under a landscape of scented blooms each spring, which are then harvested in May during the famous Festival of the Roses and processed into rosewater to be sold throughout the world.

Driving on through the Dades Valley with its fertile oases, we entered the ‘Valley of a Thousand Kasbahs’, where each of the oasis towns boast their own distinctive character, the mud and straw structures becoming more plentiful and more ornate as you progress along the valley. Later in the  afternoon I headed to the small, fortified Berber settlement of Ait Benhaddou, which has been classified by UNESCO as a ‘World Heritage Site’ and is considered by many to be one of Morocco’s most picturesque settings. 
Ait Benhaddou, Kasbah
Studded with crenellated towers and richly decorated, the town’s Kasbah is simply spectacular and provided an ideal location for filming scenes from 'Jesus of Nazareth', 'Lawrence of Arabia' and the more recent 'Gladiator'.
A view from the top of the kasbah, a granary
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Location: London Kelaat M'Gouna, Morocco