Rabat

For me the highlight of Rabat was the kasbah. This is the ancient fort of the city, at the edge of the medina, standing over the Atlantic. Its narrow streets of whitewashed and blue-trimmed houses wound towards the ocean in one direction and down to ornamental gardens in the other. It had a cool tranquility in the heat of the day and a very Mediterranean feel.

A walk back through the medina and then the new town took the four of us to Chellah, which is a ruined 14th century city containing the ruins of a Roman settlement. The ruins were pretty impressive, and the lack of information turned us all into archaeologists as we tried to work out what was what. This turned out to be a lot more interesting than reading all the answers in a guidebook and John, a history teacher, helped the more ignorant amongst us. There were tiny Roman bricks in a ranged of colours arranged to make a parquet floor, walls and pillars and drainage channels, arches, tombs and pools to wander round and walk on if you chose. The Islamic period mosque was fabulous and the minaret was topped with a stork's nest. Looking round, we spotted dozens of these nests on other bits of ruin and on treetops. Along with the clacking of the storks' bills there was the call of a bird I didn't recognise but it was the most unpleasant bird call I have ever heard, semi-human like some sort of mocking goblin.

Moroccan food is looking very promising – delicious tagine of lamb with prunes, some interesting salads and everything served with good bread and spicy thick tomato dipping sauce or a small dish of bean stew. And the French legacy of patisseries is hard to miss.