Rabat

The fortress quarter sits on a cliff at the river mouth with lanes painted blue below and white above. Orange trees are planted in its walled garden.

An unfinished minaret stops at 44 metres above a field of column stumps. Had the work continued it would have been the largest mosque of its time.

An Islamic burial ground was built over a Roman town, so two eras sit on the same ground. Storks nest on the towers and their clatter never stops.

Inside a white marble building the royal tombs lie below. Visitors look down from a gallery above and a guard stands at each door.

The streets run straighter and wider than in other cities, which makes walking easy. The wall reaches the river and boats pass below it.

Small rowed boats still carry passengers over to the opposite city. The fare is very low and it beats going round by the bridge.

It was the first museum here to gather work by contemporary artists of the country. Traditional pattern was carried into concrete across the front of the building.

Where the river meets the sea a strand takes surfers. The wall and the fortress rise behind, unlike any other beach here.

The palace stays shut and the wide yard with the gate is as far as anyone goes. People gather at the hour of the guard change to watch it.

Inside the kasbah a workshop knots carpets by hand. Price follows the knot count and the counting is done in front of the buyer.

A gate in the 12th-century Almohad walls whose stone face is carved with shell motifs and bands around the arch. The rooms inside serve as an art gallery. You come upon it walking along the walls toward the palace.

A medina street named for the foreign consuls once required to live on it, now lined with carpet, leather and jewellery shops. Parts are roofed over, giving shade even at midday. Walk its length and you arrive below the Kasbah of the Udayas.

A white art deco cathedral begun in 1919 and inaugurated in 1921; its twin towers, added in the 1930s, rise above a new-town square. Mass is still celebrated. A tram stop sits right outside, so a passing visit is simple.

A 14th-century Marinid school beside the Great Mosque in the Sale medina across the river, its small courtyard covered in carved plaster and cedar. Narrow stairs lead to the roof, where Rabat shows beyond Sale's rooftops. Cross by rowing boat and walk.

Planted in the French period to test how species adapted, it has bamboo groves, palm walks and old tropical trees in different sections. Admission is free and neighbours come to stroll. Inside, the city noise barely reaches.

Gardens beside the Atlantic highway beyond Sale, created by a horticulturist around the 1950s, with plants from around the world in zones joined by bridges and footpaths. It grows thick as a jungle, so the paths are narrow. Families with children are frequent.

A Zaha Hadid theatre on the Bouregreg riverbank whose white, wave-like curves changed the river view. Even without a show, the riverside promenade lets you take in the outside. With the tall tower on the Sale bank opposite, it marks the new riverfront.