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In the foothills of the western High Atlas Mountains, the great mountain chain that stretches across Morocco to Algeria and the Sahara, there is place called Immouzer des Ida Outanane (there is another Immouzer, Immouzer du Kandar just south of Fes - don’t get them confused) where there is a hotel called L’Hôtel Des Cascades. It is set high up in the hills, in beautiful gardens of vines, apple, almond and olive trees, roses and hollyhocks, with a good-size swimming pool and tennis court and a magnificent view of the mountains stretching all the way down to the coast. In the spring, when the almond blossom is in full bloom and the waters of the cascades (waterfalls) reach flood levels, it is spectacular. Even in January, it is often warm enough to eat outside on the broad terrace, which overlooks the swimming pool and tennis court and the valley beyond. In winter evenings, when it is too cold to sit outside, you huddle round a roaring log fire.

The father of the present owner, Jamal Atbir, built the hotel in 1970. Jamal, like his father before him, comes from Immouzer. The hotel, which has just 27 rather spartan, but perfectly comfortable rooms (with bathroom and balcony), is open all year round and it is the perfect place for anyone looking for peace and quiet. It is cut off from everywhere - there are no facilities for shopping, though every Thursday in Immouzer proper, there is a souk which sells the local speciality, honey, made by bees that browse on wild thyme, lavender and other mountain herbs, including, apparently, marijuana. Boys sell souvenirs by the waterfall, but generally commerce is kept to the minimum. The hotel organises guided walking tours. Aside from that, there is not much to do, except read, relax, swim, if it is warm enough and enjoy the food - which is excellent, though not enormously varied.

I left Immouzer and went by car to Essaouira (the driver and the car cost 700 dirhams). The three-and-a-half hour drive took us first through an amazing, virtually deserted landscape of palm trees, oases, and streams running through deep rocks. We hardly ever saw another car, only a few children playing by the roadside and men selling plastic bottles of what the driver told me was argan oil, which comes from the argan trees - you often see goats clambering about the trunks of the spiny, knotted argan trees, and the oil, which has a rich, sweet taste, is used in many Moroccan dishes and salads, or for dunking bread. Also for sale in a sudden flurry of incongruously lavish tourist shops were an endless array of rocks, fossils and minerals. In my view, the most attractive of these are ammonites; others, which contain fossilised insects, are rather creepy,

Once we reached sea level, we turned left for Essaouira (as opposed to right for Agadir) and continued up the coast. A vicious sand storm was blowing, to which the camels grazing by the seaside seemed impervious, but, in Essaouira, all was calm and sunny - one of the resort’s many charms is its climate, which remains at around 75º Fahrenheit all year round.

Essaouira, on the Atlantic coast about four hours from Agadir, was designed on a grid layout in the eighteenth century by a French architect, Theodore Cornut, a prisoner of the then Sultan, Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdallah. It was originally called Mogador and Orson Welles filmed his 1952 version of Othello there. In the Sixties and Seventies Essaouira became very popular with hippies - both Cat Stevens and Jimi Hendrix are said to have liked the place.

Essaouira is an incredibly charming town; its singular atmosphere combines the appeal of a Greek island with a certain Arab mystic and impenetrability. You are rarely hassled. In the ramparts, where Orson Welles filmed Othello and where dozens of little workshops produce furniture and objèts - boxes, chess sets, dice (all made from thuya, a mahogany-like hardwood from a local coniferous tree), the craftsmen implore you to look at their wares 'seulement pour le plaisir des yeux.’ Much of the work is inlaid and extraordinarily beautiful (to satisfy certain European taste, they are now making marquetry lavatory seats). If you are a single woman, the most you are likely to suffer is a man saying that he would like to get to know you 'better'. You can certainly get to know them better if you want - there are a number of foreign women who have acquired houses and lovers in Essaouira.

And, though the population of greater Essaouira now stands at around 50,000 and the town has expanded hugely since I first went there in the early Seventies, it has somehow it has retained all its charm - at the fish restaurant overlooking the beach, the Châlet de la Plage, which dates from 1893, the proprietor welcomes me kissing my hand, though he hasn’t seen me for at least three years. Now the fish stalls in the port have all been tarted up and organised, but the fish is just as abundant, just as cheap and it tastes just as good. Chez Sam, the fish restaurant at the far end of the port, hasn’t changed at all in thirty years. The Villa Maroc, which has to be the most delightful hotel in the world, has expanded from the original two houses into four, but there are only 24 rooms and it has lost none of its intimacy.

A big, new hotel, the Sofitel Mogador, has sprung up in the last couple of years, along with a small airport that doesn’t cater for international flights,. The hotel offers thallasotherapy treatments and has one of the largest swimming pools I have seen. It also has a bar with full-length windows where you can sit and watch the tide come in at dusk.

In Marrakech the best - and most expensive - hotel is the legendary Hôtel La Mamounia. I don’t think I’d stay there even if I could afford it, but be sure to go for a drink and to see its beautiful gardens. There are new hotels opening up all the time - riads (old houses with gardens) in the Medina) - these are not cheap and, in my view, give clients a false notion that they are living in true Moroccan style.

I have stayed many times in the little French-owned Hôtel Gallia, which is clean, pretty and within walking distance of Place Djema'a el Fna. The Rotisserie de la Paix in Gueliz and the restaurant opposite it (whose name I have forgotten) are good. Finding a drink in the Medina can be a problem, but in general Moroccan food deserves its high reputation.

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