Tangier

The fortress quarter crowns the hill with narrow lanes inside its wall. From the lookout the Spanish coast shows across the strait.

The lighthouse stands where the two seas meet. On some days the water colour differs to either side and the line between shows.

An opening to the sea resembles the shape of the African continent and fills photographs. Inside, the walls are cut where millstones were quarried.

A round square marks where the old town meets the new. Women down from the Rif spread out vegetables and sell them there.

The old legation building was kept and filled with documents and paintings. It sits inside the old town, so the way in runs through the lanes.

Open since 1921, its terraces step down a cliff above the water. Every level sits lower than the last, and the sea shows from all of them.

Stepped lanes run down the hill and the doors take a different colour on each house. Several languages mix in the air, which makes it sound unlike other cities.

A long strand on the Atlantic side takes heavy surf and few people. Men leading camels walk up and down the sand.

An hour by car reaches a white walled old city. Traces of Spanish rule show in its buildings and its signs.

Boats to Europe leave several times a day and the crossing takes an hour. People sit at the quay simply to watch them come and go.

A small square deep in the medina where, in the international-zone years, writers and exiles gathered in the cafés. People still sit on the old café terraces around it over mint tea. Follow the lane down from the Grand Socco to reach it.

The old sultan's palace inside the kasbah, turned into a regional museum spanning Phoenician times to the modern era. Its courtyard garden is quiet. On clear days the north terrace looks across the strait to the Spanish coast.

An Anglican church by the Grand Socco whose bell tower is built like a minaret and whose interior bears the Lord's Prayer carved in Arabic. British residents of the city lie in the churchyard. If the caretaker shows you round, leave a small donation.

A park right beside the Grand Socco where an old banyan spreads its branches into a wide pool of shade. The sultan's representative lived here in the international-zone era. Locals rest on the benches.

Rows of graves cut into the rock on the Marshan clifftop, with the sea straight below. They sit beside the road with no fence or visitor centre. At sunset locals sit on the rocks to watch the water.

A pine-wooded park in the hills on Tangier's western side, officially named Rmilat. In the woods stands the villa of Perdicaris, whose early 20th-century kidnapping made his name famous. City families picnic here at weekends; paths end in Atlantic views.

The cape closing off Tangier bay to the east, with the whole city and the Strait of Gibraltar laid out across the water. Facing east, it is where locals go to see the sun come up. A building styled like an old castle sits on the hill above.

A walled Atlantic town roughly an hour's ride down the coast from Tangier, with murals on the white walls of its lanes. Each summer arts festival, painters cover the walls with new work. Catch the sunset from the bastion where the ramparts meet the sea.