What can you do in Tangier in two days?

Tangier sits where Africa nearly touches Europe, and it has always been a city of spies, writers and exiles — that edginess is the whole point of going. On day one I keep you in the old town. The medina here is steep and compact, tumbling down to the port, and the Kasbah at the top holds the Kasbah Museum and viewpoints over the strait where on a clear day you can see Spain. Down in the Petit Socco, the old café terraces still hum with the louche atmosphere that drew Bowles, Burroughs and the Beats. End the day at a clifftop café in the Marshan or Café Hafa, perched over the water since 1921, for a sunset where two seas meet.

Day two I get you out of the centre. A 15-kilometre drive west brings you to Cap Spartel, the headland where the Atlantic and Mediterranean officially divide, and just below it the Caves of Hercules — a sea cave with an opening shaped, uncannily, like a map of Africa. It's touristy but genuinely striking, and the coastal drive there is gorgeous. Have a fish lunch at one of the beach restaurants nearby.

Back in town for the afternoon, I'd slow down in the Ville Nouvelle. Tangier's 20th-century cafés — the Gran Café de Paris on the Place de France above all — are living museums of the international era, and an hour with a coffee there watching the city pass is time well spent. The Librairie des Colonnes, a legendary bookshop, is a few steps away.

Two days is the right amount for Tangier. One feels rushed; three risks running out of headline sights, since the city's pleasure is atmosphere more than monuments. It also makes an excellent first or last stop if you're connecting to Chefchaouen, Asilah or a ferry to Spain.