Essaouira Medina & Port Walking Tour with a Local Guide

Essaouira was built in the 1760s by Sultan Mohammed ben Abdallah, who invited a French engineer to design a modern port and a city of straight streets inside sea walls. It became Morocco's main port for trade with Europe, home to Muslim, Jewish and European merchants, and its medina is now listed by UNESCO. On this half-day walking tour, a local guide brings that history to life. You start at the port, where boat builders still work on wooden hulls and fishermen sell their catch at the market. Then you walk on the Skala du Port and the Skala de la Ville, the sea bastions lined with bronze cannons, before entering the medina: the Mellah, the old Jewish quarter with its restored synagogue, the spice and jewellery souks, and the workshops where craftsmen inlay thuya wood, a fragrant local root. You end with mint tea on a rooftop overlooking the ocean.