Over the Atlas to Agadir

The highway from Marrakesh to the seaside resort of Agadir in Morocco is a dull and often traffic-clogged affair. But take the old road across the Atlas mountains instead and you are in for one of the great rides of your life, says Anthony Sattin in The Sunday Times. It ascends gradually into the "broad upland valley" of the N’Fis river, a "blessed place, its orchards lush, its floor littered with flowers in the spring", passing an Almohad mosque on

which the Giralda in Seville was modelled. And then quite suddenly at the lip of the Tizi-n-Test pass, 6,800ft above sea level, the whole world seems to open up ahead before the road plunges down through terrifying serpentine coils towards the sea.

Flights with Royal Air Maroc (020-7307 5800; royalairmaroc.com) into Marrakesh and back from Agadir cost about £350.