Only twenty minutes down into the town this morning with a stop at a water fountain to fill up.
We landed in a huge free car park here at the south end of the beach but unfortunately there’s no overnight parking and no nearby campsite. ☹️
We were first struck by how cool and breezy it was as we walked along the big wide promenade which runs all the way around to the medina. The clean, sandy beach partly backed by dunes is massive and seems very popular with kite surfers.
There’s a much more relaxed feel to Essaouira than any of the other places that we’ve visited in Morocco. It’s a mixture of all different nationalities and feels like a very laid back and tolerant place.
The port, fish market and boat builders/repair yard are particularly colourful with blue wooden fishing boats packed into the little harbour like sardines. Some very unusual varieties of fish for sale too and so many. Plenty of cats around to eat the left overs though.
We wandered up on to the ramparts then through the medina for quite a while – it had quite a hippy kind of atmosphere and felt much more open than some of the others that we’ve been to. It was also, virtually hassle free.
Late afternoon we met up with an old colleague of Guy’s, Simon, his lovely wife Jodie, and their family. It was really nice to have some company for the evening and so unusual to sit eating tapas in a lovely bar overlooking the beach, nice music and…camels walking past!
