North Atlantic Coast - Morocco

This five-hundred-kilometre stretch of windswept coastline is home to Morocco's cosmopolitan capital, Rabat, and its economic hub, Casablanca. The fertile plains inland from Rabat have been occupied and the land cultivated since Palaeolithic times, with Neolithic settlements found on the coast to the south, notably at present-day Temara and Skhirat, the gracious Mauresque architecture and liberal attitudes are a far cry from the medieval medinas and conservative lifestyles of the inland cities of Fez and Marrakech.