What is the imperial cities circuit route like?

The imperial cities circuit is the trip I design for culture-and-history travellers who are not chasing the desert. Morocco has had four imperial capitals over the centuries — Marrakech, Rabat, Meknes and Fes — and stringing them together makes a wonderfully rich loop of palaces, medinas, mosques and Roman ruins, all on good roads with no punishing mountain crossings. Most versions also fold in Casablanca, where international flights arrive, and the ruins of Volubilis.

A natural flow runs Casablanca to Rabat, the dignified seaside capital, with its Kasbah of the Udayas, the Hassan Tower and the royal mausoleum — only about 90 kilometres up the coast and an easy start. From Rabat it is around 210 kilometres east to Meknes, the quietest and, I think, most underrated of the four: vast imperial gates, the granaries and stables of Moulay Ismail, and just up the road the extraordinary Roman city of Volubilis with its mosaic floors still in place after eighteen centuries.

Fes is the jewel of the circuit and demands the most time — two nights minimum. Its medieval medina is the largest car-free urban area in the world, a sensory maze of nine thousand lanes, the famous chouara tanneries, brassworkers, and the green-tiled Kairaouine, home to what is often called the oldest still-operating university on earth. I let guests get pleasantly lost here; it is a city you feel as much as see.

The circuit closes with the long but scenic run south to Marrakech — about 530 kilometres, which I break with a Middle Atlas overnight rather than driving in one shot. Marrakech, the red city, is the theatrical finale: the souks, the Bahia and Badi palaces, the Koutoubia, and the nightly carnival of Jemaa el-Fnaa. Six to eight days lets you give each capital its due without it becoming a forced march, and you come away with the full arc of Moroccan history rather than a single slice.