Tanger-Tétouan-Al Hoceïma

Tangier has spent the last two decades rebuilding itself and the version visitors arrive in now is markedly different from its old reputation. The medina climbs from the port up to a kasbah at the top, and unlike the great inland medinas it is small enough to cross without anxiety, with the sea appearing at the end of the lanes. Below it the two main squares step down towards the port; above it the kasbah holds a museum in a former palace and a terrace looking out at the strait. The city's mid-century period as a cosmopolitan crossroads drew a long list of writers, painters and musicians, and their cafés, hotels and haunts are still there and still working — that literary and artistic layer is a genuine reason to visit and the thing most people mean when they say Tangier is different. West of the city the coast road runs out to a headland where the two seas meet, with a lighthouse above the point and a large sea cave in the cliffs below whose opening happens to be shaped like a map of Africa.

An hour south-east, Tetouan holds one of the best-preserved and least-visited medinas in Morocco, listed by UNESCO and quite distinct from the more famous ones — it was largely built and settled by people arriving from Andalusia, and the architecture, the craft traditions and the food all show it. The lanes are whitewashed rather than earth-coloured, the tilework and woodwork follow Andalusi patterns, and the seven gates and the old Jewish quarter are still legible in the plan. Because so few foreign visitors come, the commercial pressure that defines a walk through the great southern medinas is largely absent here, which makes it one of the easiest places in the country to simply wander. The Spanish-built new town outside the walls, laid out in the early twentieth century, is worth a look for its architecture, and there is a long-established fine arts school that keeps the craft traditions in circulation rather than in a museum.

South of Tangier on the Atlantic coast, Asilah is a small walled town of whitewashed houses and blue doors with ramparts dropping straight to the sea, and it is the most straightforwardly charming place in the region. Its distinguishing feature is an arts tradition: for decades an annual summer festival has invited artists to paint murals directly onto the walls of the medina, which are then whitewashed over and repainted the following year, so the town's decoration is genuinely different from one visit to the next. Outside the festival season it is quiet, small enough to see in a morning, and an easy stop on the way in or out of Tangier. The beaches run for kilometres north and south of it and are busy in August with Moroccan families and close to empty otherwise.

East of Tangier the shoreline becomes Mediterranean in character — calm, warm in summer, with small resort towns near Tetouan that are firmly aimed at domestic holidaymakers, and then a long mountainous stretch where the Rif comes down to the water. That middle section is the interesting one: a coastal national park of limestone cliffs, hidden coves and clear water, much of it reachable only by boat or on foot, with a few small towns strung along it. Inland the Rif is steep, green, wetter than most of Morocco, and heavily farmed in terraces, with the famous blue town in the middle of it and a great deal of walking country around that almost nobody uses. The roads through the range are slow and winding and the driving is genuinely tiring, which is the main practical constraint on exploring it.

This is the easiest region in Morocco to reach from Europe. The short ferry crossing from southern Spain lands close to Tangier's city centre, a larger vehicle ferry serves the commercial port outside town, and the city is the northern terminus of the high-speed railway, which reaches the capital and the economic capital quickly. That combination makes an overland arrival from Europe genuinely practical and makes the region the natural first or last stop of a traverse. Within the region, coaches connect the main towns frequently and shared long-distance taxis handle the shorter hops and the mountain routes. A hire car helps on the Mediterranean coast and in the Rif, where the interest is in stopping, and is unnecessary between the cities. The national picture — where the railway ends, and how the shared-taxi system actually works — belongs to the getting-around guide.

The region's seasons run differently from the rest of the country because it is wetter and further north. Summer is the Mediterranean coast's high season and the towns fill with Moroccan families, particularly in August, when accommodation is scarce and prices peak — it is also when the region is at its liveliest. Spring and autumn are the best all-round windows: warm enough for the coast, comfortable for walking in the Rif, and quiet in the cities. Winter is genuinely wet here, more so than anywhere else in Morocco, and the mountains are cold and often cloudy, though the cities are mild and the coast is empty. If your plan is walking rather than swimming, avoid both August and midwinter.