The Asilah Medina

Asilah is a fishing town whose old quarter sits behind ramparts built by the Portuguese in the fifteenth century, right on the ocean. The medina is tiny by Moroccan standards and takes under an hour to cross, all whitewash with doors and window frames painted in cobalt, green and ochre, cats on the steps and almost no traffic. Since the late 1970s the town has held a summer arts festival, during which invited artists paint murals directly onto the medina walls; the paintings are whitewashed over and replaced in later years, so what you see depends on when you come. The sea wall walk on the western side ends at a small cemetery and a platform where the Atlantic breaks below, and the fishing port keeps the town working outside festival season.

What you actually see

• The ramparts - Portuguese sea walls with a walkway above the Atlantic.
• The murals - wall paintings renewed at the summer arts festival.
• The painted doors - cobalt and green joinery against whitewashed lanes.
• The fishing port - boats and the morning catch just outside the walls.

When to go

Late spring and early autumn give the best balance of weather and quiet. The arts festival falls in summer and fills the town, when accommodation prices rise sharply and the medina is shoulder to shoulder; the murals are freshest then. Winter is windy and many places shut.

Honest expectations

It is small, and half a day is genuinely enough. In July and August Asilah is a domestic holiday town, packed and expensive, and the beaches near the centre are crowded and not especially clean. Outside the festival some murals are faded or half painted out. Restaurants on the medina edge charge well above what the town otherwise costs.

Nearby

Tangier is under an hour north; the Roman site of Lixus lies south near Larache.