Posts Tagged ‘Family tours Morocco’

A Family Friendly Adventure Vacation to Morocco

Friday, September 2nd, 2016
Family Adventure, Camel Trekking in the Sahara

Family Adventure, Camel Trekking in the Sahara

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Morocco is one of the leading holiday destinations for families who want to tour a country that offers a wide range of adventure activities. The country’s unique combination of urban cities, historic medinas, rural landscapes, mountain villages, a grand Sahara desert and sandy beaches make it family friendly vacation zone. Morocco’s tourism industry offers activtiies that are suitable for children of all ages. Family friendly Adventure Vacations and Holiday Tours to Morocco can be tailor made to accommodate outdoor or indoor activites. Families vacationing in Morocco are guaranteed a safe travel experience.

Morocco Family Vacation, Village Drum Session

Morocco Family Vacation, Village Drum Session

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Morocco Family Adventure Vacation Tour – One Week Holiday Itineary at a Glance:

Day 1: Visit the Majorelle Gardens in Marrakech. This colorful garden is like cotton candy for the entire family with its wide variety of flora and fauna. Explore the costumes in the Berber Musuem and learn how this mountain culture once lived. Visit the old medina’s ancient fortress walls, the souks, markets and climb the stairs of the Ben Youssef medersa. End the day with a visit to Djemma El Fna Square at Sunset and a Marrakech Food Tour where the entire family will have dinner on the road. Explore the backstreets of the Marrakech medina. Snack on Moroccan doughnuts, Harira soup with sweet dates, sip fresh fruit juices, sandwiches, visit a bread oven and consider the exotic tasting of Moroccan meats. Overnight in an Family friendly Moroccan Riad.

Day 2: Cook Up Morocco at a Kid Friendly Cooking Class where the entire family can make their own Berber Tajine. Guided by a Daada Chef you will visit the food marekts in the medina, learn how vegetables are bought and sold, explore the spice souks and then craft your own meal and then dine on it for lunch. End the day with a Kalech ride through the new cities garden district. Overnight in an Family friendly Moroccan Riad.

Day 3: Take the road to Morocco’s Great South. En route visit the Ounilla Valley and Kasbah Telouet, a famous Kasbah that was once the home of the Pacha Glaoui. Continue to Ouarzazate, the Hollywood of Morocco. Climb to the top of Ait Ben Haddou Ksar and have lunch with views of the old town. Visit the Hollywood Film Studios where famous movies such as Kundun, Body of Lies, Cleopatra and the Game of Thrones were filmed. Overnight in an Family friendly Moroccan Riad with views of Ait Ben Haddou.

Berber Village Lunch

Berber Village Lunch

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day 4: Departure to the Sahara Desert. En Route visit the Draa Valley known for being crossed by pirates. Visit Agdz and the market of dates. Continue to the Berber Village of Ait Ouzzine. Nestled in the Saghro mountains is a Berber Village where you will learn how couscous is made, visit a working farm and have tea with a Berber family. Afternoon Family walk in the fields and see how the traditional Berbers live with their gardens of herbs, livestock, and henna plants. Lunch will be served followed by a henna party for the entire family. Continue to the arid Sahara Desert. Sunset camel trek across the Erg Chebbi Dunes. Bonfire and 1001 Arabian Nights dinner for the entire family. Overnight in a Wild Desert Camp in the Sahara Desert.

Day 5: Sahara Desert Adventure activties will fill your morning. Quad bike across the Erg Chebbi’s grand sand dunes. Explore the flora and fauna on a desert walk with your Berber guide. Go off pise (windy road) to a children’s school in the heart of the Merzouga Desert. Visit a school, meet a local teacher and see how children learn in Morocco. Next stop, visit the Musicians of Khemlia, Gnaoua travelers who made their way to the Sahara Desert and never left. Tea and almonds will be served as you watch this family friendly Moroccan, Berber drumming performance by the Century old Gnaouan muscians. Continue to Rissani after and learn about the art of bread baking of Madfouna, a Moroccan pizza. Visit fossil stuios to see how objects of art are made. Then continue to the Todra Gorge. Overnight at the foot of the Todra Gorge.

Day 6: Visit the Todra Gorge’s grand canyon. Watch Berber women fetch water with their daughter with donkey’s by their side. Hike through the Todra Gorge, have lunch at the foot of the Gorge. Continue to the Dades Valley. Overnight at a Guest House with Views of the Dades Valley.

Day 7: Dades Valley Rise Early. Visit the Dades Gorge, the Monkey fingers and drive through the Dades Pins along limestone cliffs with uniquely shaped erosions and superb scenery. Continue to the Valley of Roses. Visit this fertile region known for the Rose Demascus. Option to continue to the Valley of Nomads and have tea with a Nomad Family en route to Skoura. Overnight in at Guest House in the Skoura Palmerie.

Skoura Palmeraie, Valley of 1000 Kasbahs

Skoura Palmeraie, Valley of 1000 Kasbahs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day 8: Visit Skoura and the Valley of 1000 Kasbahs. Skoura is a fertile oasis lined with immense palm groves that provide great views of the Atlas Mountains. Explore this unqiue region that is filled with a vast palmerie and small ksars once inhabited by Jews. Continue to the region of Ouarzazate. Visit the Oasis of Fint and have tea at the Head masters house. Then take the road back to Marrakech.

For More Information about Morocco Family Friendly Vacations & Tours

Morocco’s Imperial Cities, Seaside Resorts,Sahara Desert,Berber villages, A Taste of Morocco, Magical Kasbahs, Ruins & Waterfalls, Absolute Morocco, The Best of Marrakech, Fes, and Ouarzazate

Discover The Best of Morocco - Travel Exploration
Travel Exploration specializes in Morocco Travel. We provide Tours and travel opportunities to Morocco for the independent traveler and tailor-made tours for families and groups with a distinctly unique flavor. From Morocco’s Seven Imperial Cities, to the Magical Sahara Travel Exploration offers a captivating experience that will inspire you. At Travel Exploration we guarantee that you will discover the best of Morocco! Call Travel Exploration at 1 (800) 787-8806 or + 1 (212) 618882681 and let’s book a tour to Morocco for you today.

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Bread & Morocco, A Love Affair

Wednesday, August 24th, 2016
Bread baking in the Sahara, Photograph by Amanda Mouttaki

Bread baking in the Sahara, Photograph by Amanda Mouttaki

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“The children of him who has wheat in his house should not beg of his neighbor.”

“Manage with bread and salted butter until God brings something to eat with it.”

“There is no hunger but the hunger of wheat.”

~ Moroccan Proverbs

There are plenty of things you will not find on a typical Moroccan table such as silverware, water glasses and individual plates. However there’s one thing you will always find, and that is a hearty basket of bread. As age-old Moroccan proverbs illustrate, Moroccan bread is a vital part of the diet and culture. Morocco’s terrain is dry and the land is harsh geographically. Bread is the one food that binds people together at a meal and can be made relatively inexpensively with few ingredients. Wheat can be kept and used over time when fresh ingredients are more difficult to come by. Dry bread provides sustenance for a population that today still remains semi-nomadic.

Visit any village in Morocco during the wheat harvest season and you will see women in colorful attire across the fields sifting kernels of wheat in woven baskets, removing the bits that are inedible before grinding to flour. Families work together in unison within the fields collecting the grain. Not a single kernel is wasted. The grain is sold and traded among families across rural regions as well as being kept until the next harvest. Moroccan bread is a prized food.

In urban areas of Morocco where there are no family plots to tend Moroccans make bread in their home or purchase ready-made bread. The varieties of breads that Moroccan families can purchase are many ranging from typical white to grain, sesame with anise and barley. As the result of Moroccan subsidies bread is affordable to all.

How Bread Is Made Across Morocco:
Across Morocco there are several ways of making Moroccan bread and also many varieties of preparation. In the Sahara Desert region, the traditional way of baking is to build a hot fire on top of the sand and then bury the bread once it is hot enough. Another Southern bread baking tradition indigenous to the Draa Valley, Saghro region is to bake bread stuffed with fat, spices and herbs directly on volcanic rock, which produces a pizza-like thick doughy bread called bourafin. In the mountains an oven resembling a tandoori oven is used, the dough stuck to the sides of the clay oven and baked over fire to produce a charred loaf of tafernout.

In the north of Morocco kalinti is a bread made with chickpea flour. There are also several iterations of stovetop breads like msemmen, harsha, and batbout. In Moroccan cities the practice of bread baking is gradually dying out as the result of ready-made bread and a generation of new working class that has no time to bake. Bringing the daily bread (khobz) to the traditional oven was once a central part of life.

Moroccan Breads, Photograph by Amanda Mouttaki

Moroccan Breads, Photograph by Amanda Mouttaki

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In traditional Moroccan homes women kneed their dough in the morning; flattening it into characteristic round loaves and covering it with a cotton cloth. Then, they placed it onto a tray or wooden board and either give it to one of their children to drop off on the way to school or leave it outside the door. A neighbor or another person passing by who saw the tray instinctively pick it up and drops it off at the oven. At lunch it was picked up and paid for, each loaf a flat rate. In the ovens, dozens of loaves at a time are baked. The baker always knew which bread belongs to which tray and family. The baker was also the eyes and ears of the community through his close, daily interaction with the neighbors. He could tell how well off a family was, how often they had company, and more based on passing words when coming in or the bread itself. When an engagement was in the works, the baker was often consulted for inside information on the prospective bride or groom’s family.

Bread is the utensil used to eat. It’s broken off (never cut with a knife) and used to scoop up tajines, soak up sauces, and savor soups. It’s drizzled with olive oil and served alongside a hot cup of tea for breakfast or stuffed with tuna or boiled eggs for a snack or late night meal. When there’s little else in the cupboards there’s bread to tide over an empty stomach.

Bread is held in very high esteem in Morocco. It is never thrown in the garbage and the first reaction when dropped on the floor is to immediately pick it up and kiss it. The very basic ingredients in Moroccan bread mean that within a day or at most two it is dry. Dishes like treda make use of bread that’s stale. It’s shredded and put in the bottom of a plate and then topped with spiced lentils, sauce, and chicken if available.

To dispose of bread scraps that cannot be salvaged the garbage is not an option. They’re put in a bag separate from the other waste and when collected set aside by the garbage man. It’s then fed to animals or used as compost.

The sacredness and special place bread holds in the Moroccan culture and home is not without challenges. Those who struggle with illnesses like celiac disease face an uphill battle. For many Moroccans it’s unfathomable that bread could make someone violently ill. For visitors this can be a difficult bridge to cross.

Every culture has a particular food item that serves as a staple and the Moroccan love affair with bread remains a steadfast part of the Moroccan culinary tradition.

For more How to Make a Tajine or A Taste of Morocco Food Tour Morocco Food Tour

For more information about Bread Baking on a Morocco Private Tour

Amanda Mouttaki is a food and travel writer and blogger, with an expertise on Moroccan culinary traditions and food culture. Her passion is uncovering the stories behind traditional cultures and food around the world. She lives in Marrakech, Morocco with her family.

Morocco’s Imperial Cities, Seaside Resorts,Sahara Desert,Berber villages, A Taste of Morocco, Magical Kasbahs, Ruins & Waterfalls, Absolute Morocco, The Best of Marrakech, Fes, and Ouarzazate

Discover The Best of Morocco - Travel Exploration
Travel Exploration specializes in Morocco Travel. We provide Tours and travel opportunities to Morocco for the independent traveler and tailor-made tours for families and groups with a distinctly unique flavor. From Morocco’s Seven Imperial Cities, to the Magical Sahara Travel Exploration offers a captivating experience that will inspire you. At Travel Exploration we guarantee that you will discover the best of Morocco! Call Travel Exploration at 1 (800) 787-8806 or + 1 (212) 618882681 and let’s book a tour to Morocco for you today.

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12 Things to Do in Morocco with Kids

Wednesday, July 20th, 2016
12 Things to do with Morocco with Kids

12 Things to do with Morocco with Kids

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Morocco is a family friendly country and the perfect choice for travelers with kids. Whether you are planning Morocco vacation as a younger family or traveling with older children Morocco has a wealth of adventure activities and things to do with kids. There are many exciting activities that serve as family tour essentials on a private tour not to be missed. Moroccans love children and much of the culture revolves around family. Children are welcome in Morocco and treated well and with much personal interest. It is common for Moroccans to admire children, offer compliments and engage warmly with families. The unique combination of Morocco’s rural landscapes paried with the old world medinas (cities) and mix of exotic cuisine make Morocco a magical place to take a Family Adventure vacation.

 

12 Things to Do in Morocco with Kids:

Camel Trek Acorss the Moroccan Sahara Desert
Camel Trekking offers a unique way to travel Morocco’s great south. Families can explore nomadic villages and Kasbahs situated in palm groves, surrounding valleys, mountainous landscapes, gorges and the grand Sahara Desert Dunes. Camel trekking is an inspirational family adventure that shows how Moroccans traveled through the desert for decades and centuries before. Trek to an Oasis or camel trek at sunset before overnighting in a desert camp in the heart of the dunes.

Explore Moroccan cuisine on a Food Tour
Food Tours serve as an opportunity for families to discover local Moroccan cuisine. Venture on a guided, private Food Tour of Marrakech’s Djemma El Fna Square. Discover the best local eats such as exotic snail soup, sheepshead and sip Mint tea. A Fes Food Tour hosted by a local is also a perfect family activity for kids. Your local Moroccan Food Tour guide will share traditional cooking methods by taking you to visit a furnatchi where the water for the communal bath house ‘hammam’ is also heated, and a 400 year old ‘furan’ or communal oven and bakery. Look no further as the world of spices and their uses and the secrets will be in your hands. Explore the spice market and the male-oriented domain of the tea den under the guidance of a culinary leader and story-teller. Learn to bake bread in the 400-year old community oven with the baker overseeing your hands-on efforts. Take your hot bread to the honey souk to try it with 8 artisanal wild honeys, aged butter or khlia, spicy dried beef. Food tours are created for foodies and those who have the penchant for the exotic, you may try cooking ‘on-street’. Shop and fill up a terracotta urn ‘tanjia’ to have embedded in the hot ashes of the furnachi for a rich and spicy Moroccan casserole, followed by a succulent tasting.

Hike the High Atlas
Hiking in Morocco is an essential family activity. With the High Atlas Mountains and located just an hour from Marrakech, families can trek through Berber Villages, overnight at a refuge and dine at a local family, Berber barbecue.

Djemaa El Fna Square

Djemaa El Fna Square

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Djemaa El Fna Square
Djemaa El Fna Square is said to be the heart and soul of Marrakech. At the signal of sunset, this mysterious and mesmerizing place truly comes alive. Snake charmers fiddle flirtatiously with their cobras, fire swallowers eat fire, storytellers entertain big crowds, fortune tellers mesmerize tourists with tall tales and the rhythms of African and Arabic sounds hypnotize the crowds amongst the colorful clouds of cooking smoke decorating the air with mingled aromas of mint, cilantro, cumin, and turmeric. The square is transformed into a magical medieval styled circus.

Attend a Fantasia Horse Spectacle
Experience a traditional Fantasia at the Chez Ali Equestiran Show in Marrakech. A Fantasia is an equestiran horse show, with entertainment, with Berber song, dance and fireworks that can be enjoed with a Moroccan meal of miswhi (Moroccan roasted lamb) and couscous.

Get Lost in Morocco’s old medinas with a Local Guide
Morocco’s medinas )ancient cities) have narrow alleys, each leading to hidden architectural jewels and unique Moroccan historical sites. Morocco’s medinas are traditional living quarters of the local population that has within them neighborhoods which allow self sufficiency such as a mosuqe, water fountain, bread oven, vegetable souk and butcher. Medinas also have magnficient boutique riads and hotels, opulent gardens, restaurants and are home to wonderful fruit and vegetable souks, handy crafts, woodworkers, desginers and bakers.

Quad Ride Across the Sahara Desert Dunes
Quad riding in Morocco is ideal for families looking for adventure or those who want to experience rural terrain. Morocco offers dense desert trails, wild beaches and dunes that you can fly across during your Quad biking session. Quad bike across the Sahara Desert in Merzouga’s Erg Chebbi Dunes, M’hamid El Ghizlane’s Dunes or Erg Chegaga’s Dunes.

Take a Cooking Class with a Daada Chef
Cooking Classes are conducted by a dada (traditional Moroccan cook) or a chef from and held at a kitchen in the medina, rural or in a palmeraie garden setting. Family Moroccan Cooking Classes are a total of 4 hours with an option of an add on of wines tasting accompaniment. At the end of each class, families can dine on the meal they have prepared. At a typical half-day cooking class, families will prepare an appetizer and a main dish, or a main dish and dessert.

Fly Over the Hot Atlas in a Hot Air Balloon
Hot Air Balloon Over the Atlas at sunrise with views of Marrakech. Enjoy a 1-Hour balloon flight, then receive your souvenier flight certificate. Included in the kid friendly adventure for families is a 4×4 Land rover excursion through local Berber villages to a private tent where breakfast is served along with a visit to a Berber house and camel trek across the Marrakech palmeraie.

Zipline Through the Atlas

Zipline Through the Atlas

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Zipline Through the High Atlas
Zip Lining across the High Atlas can easily be incorporated as a one or two day excursion from Marrakech. The estate Travel Exploration works with is a grand example of ecotourism in Morocco done at its best suitable for families with kids. Take in the breathtaking famous 700-foot gorge and tree-to-tree zip-lining. Morocco adventure travelers can also cross the Tyrol suspension and tight-rope bridges, hike and trek on foot, horse or mule, participate in Berber bowling, archery, falconry and polo on mule-back. To top this off there are Berber weaving demonstrations along with Moroccan cuisine and tea-making workshops.

 

Vist A Water Park
Oasaria Water Park serves as the perfect day excursion for families planning to visit Morocco in summer. This water park features multiple slides, a wave pool, a lazy river & kids’ splash areas.

Lunch with a Berber Family

Lunch with a Berber Family

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sip Tea with a Berber Family
Meet a local Berber family, sip tea in the Sagro Mountains, and dine on couscous. Then explore and tour the village by foot. Walk in the green fields and see how the traditional Berbers live with their gardens of herbs, livestock, and henna plants. After lunch, you can have your hands and feet painted with henna or your hair adorned with saffron by a local village artist and relax. Experience the tradition of Berber perfume made from musk and amber along with the villages own spices.

For More Information about Things to Do with Kids in Morocco or a Private, Morocco Family Tour

Morocco’s Imperial Cities, Seaside Resorts,Sahara Desert,Berber villages, A Taste of Morocco, Magical Kasbahs, Ruins & Waterfalls, Absolute Morocco, The Best of Marrakech, Fes, and Ouarzazate

Discover The Best of Morocco - Travel Exploration
Travel Exploration specializes in Morocco Travel. We provide Tours and travel opportunities to Morocco for the independent traveler and tailor-made tours for families and groups with a distinctly unique flavor. From Morocco’s Seven Imperial Cities, to the Magical Sahara Travel Exploration offers a captivating experience that will inspire you. At Travel Exploration we guarantee that you will discover the best of Morocco! Call Travel Exploration at 1 (800) 787-8806 or + 1 (212) 618882681 and let’s book a tour to Morocco for you today.

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The Tissa Horse Festival, Your Morocco Guide

Wednesday, August 14th, 2013

Tissa Horse Festival, Fes

During the year, the small town of Tissa,on the edge of the Rif region, in the province of Taounate, is a quiet rural community, tucked away in the hills of the Moroccan countryside, fifty kilometers away from Fez. From 8-13 October 2013, the town will be transformed, as it is each year, in to one of the premier horse festivals in Morocco.

The culture and tradition of horses and horsemanship is deeply rooted and widespread in Morocco. The Fantasia or Tborida are contested by competing teams dressed in colorful traditional gandouras and djellabas, charging the full length a field only pulling up at the last minute whilst firing their djezail flintlocks with a thunderous explosion. The Tborida teams led by a ma’alem, or teacher,form up Into a single line and at the signal begin the charge. In the closing stages they must rotate their djezails with one arm at full gallop before pulling up and firing.

They are assessed by the judges for horsemanship, maintaining their line during the charge and successfully pulling up at the end. The horses are trained to do this, but even so, riding at full gallop with the reins in one hand and the djezail in the other is an impressive feat of horsemanship. Very rarely a horse may run on after the halt. To stand in front of the charge even though it is behind a barrier is to sense something of the fear these riders inspired in the enemy. The firing of the djezails is very loud and the smoke billows in the air,along with the occasional wad from one of the djezails dropping to earth.

The French Romantic painte, Eugène Delacroix, immortalized the Moroccan tribal horseman riding into battle following his first visit to North Africa in the 1830’s and the son of the Pasha of Marrakech, Hassan El Glaoui, famous for his paintings of Moroccan riders and horses once remarked that his father who died in 1956, went to war on horseback.

The large tent city erected for the festival also provides traditional music and dancing as well as displaying artifacts, ceramics and jewelry and providing food and drink. The festival is an important event for the local economy and has been held in Tissa since medieval times. It coincides with the mouassem of a local saint, Sidi Muhammad ben Lahcen who lived in the 15th century.

Like all good horse shows the different breeds of horses are the subject of close attention; pure bred Arabian stallions, Barbary mares and Arab-Berber horses are bought and sold. To bring the Horse Festival of Tissa to a close, there is a huge parade in the stadium. The international horse show at El Jadida under the patronage of King Mohammed VI has done much to reintroduce the Barb horse , which has great strength and endurance , back into international breeding circles.

Tissa has a great reputation as a horse show with a fair, sometimes a circus, a huge bazaar, and finally the official folklore of the region “Hayti”. It is visited by 4,000 spectators each year and is a great opportunity to enjoy an important regional event and mix with the locals and Moroccans who have brought their horses from all over the country. Moroccans living abroad in France, Spain and Italy also participate in festivals such as Tissa.
Tissa was garrisoned by the French during the protectorate because it was on the way to Fes and has an upper Tissa on the hill with a church and other buildings and lower Tissa lies at the bottom of the hill.

For More Information about a Marrakech Riads or a Marrakech Tour

Morocco’s Imperial Cities, Seaside Resorts,Sahara Desert,Berber villages, A Taste of Morocco, Magical Kasbahs, Ruins & Waterfalls, Absolute Morocco, The Best of Marrakech, Fes, and Ouarzazate

Discover The Best of Morocco - Travel Exploration
Travel Exploration specializes in Morocco Travel.  We provide Tours and travel opportunities to Morocco for the independent traveler and tailor-made tours for families and groups with a distinctly unique flavor. From Morocco’s Seven Imperial Cities, to the Magical Sahara Travel Exploration offers a captivating experience that will inspire you. At Travel Exploration we guarantee that you will discover the best of Morocco! Call Travel Exploration at 1 (800) 787-8806 or + 1 (212) 618882681 and let’s book a tour to Morocco for you today.

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