Casablanca

Casablanca is Morocco's largest city, its business capital and its main air gateway, where direct flights from Jeddah land. It is a modern city on the Atlantic, with wide avenues and 20th-century buildings that join Moroccan ornament to European style.

Its best-known landmark is the Hassan II Mosque, completed in 1993, partly built over the ocean, whose 210-metre minaret is among the tallest in the world. It holds thousands of worshippers inside and in its courtyard; you can pray there, or visit on a guided tour outside prayer times.

The Ain Diab corniche has restaurants and cafés by the sea, and the Habous quarter a market of books, crafts and Moroccan pastries. We suggest a night or two at the start or end of the journey; from here the train reaches Marrakech in about two hours forty.