Safi Medina

Safi is a working port and phosphate town and its medina is not polished, which is the first thing to say. It runs down the slope between the Kechla, a hilltop fortress that now holds the ceramics museum, and Dar el-Bahar, the Portuguese sea castle at the water. Inside are ordinary souks and the unfinished Portuguese cathedral, a fragment of gothic vaulting left standing when the Portuguese withdrew in 1541. What makes the town is the pottery. Colline des Potiers, the hill just outside the medina wall, is a working quarter of dozens of workshops and cone-shaped wood-fired kilns that have produced Safi ceramics for centuries - the blue-and-white and polychrome ware sold across Morocco - and you can walk among the kilns and watch throwing, glazing and firing. It is dusty, smoky and entirely genuine.

What you actually see

• A working pottery hill - dozens of workshops and wood-fired kilns outside the wall.
• Dar el-Bahar - the Portuguese sea castle on the shore below the medina.
• The Kechla - a hilltop fortress holding the national ceramics museum.
• An unfinished cathedral - gothic vaulting left standing after the 1541 withdrawal.

When to go

Spring and autumn. Half a day; mornings when the workshops are firing.

Honest expectations

Safi is an industrial port and parts of the town are grim - the phosphate works dominate the approach. The pottery hill is dusty and smoky. Workshop guides expect payment and steer to shops. The medina needs ordinary care with valuables.

Nearby

Dar el-Bahar is on the shore; Lalla Fatna and Cap Beddouza are north.