Ourika Valley

A great day trip from Marrakesh, the Ourika Valley is prime hiking territory in all seasons, especially if you aren't up to hitting the heights of Djebel Toubkal. It's also stunning. Less than 20 minutes out of Marrakesh you can see green gorges, sparkling yellow wheat fields at the foot of snowcapped mountains, and the ferocious flush of the Ourika River, where women wash clothes in the spray of waterfalls at the roadside. Look out, too, for flat Berber homes; they're assembled in stacked villages the same red as the earth they merge into. The only vertical line that breaks the slither of horizontal roofs is that of the village mosque, whose minaret towers above it all. As you leave Marrakesh, the approach to the valley is lined with flat, spiky cactus and eucalyptus trees, before reaching the foothills of the Atlas and hugging the left-hand bank of the fast-flowing River Ourika.