CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 399 km round trip from Ouarzazat - roughly 7 h 46 in the saddle. On the way it passes Medina of Marrakesh, Médina et le jardin d'Agdal, Jardin de la Menara and back through Médina et le jardin d'Agdal. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,500 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For 174 km this is Tizi n'Tichka Pass, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Check the pass is open before you commit to it.
Ouarzazate is a town built where the High Atlas gives way to the desert, and the light there is so strong and clear that the film industry came to rely on it. It sits on a high plateau at the southern foot of the mountains, with the pale red earth and flat-topped hills of southern Morocco spreading out in front, and it has been the location for films such as Lawrence of Arabia, Gladiator and numerous others. Huge studio complexes on the edge of town offer visits, with sets of ancient Egypt and Tibet standing in the dust, but the real attraction lies in the kasbahs.
Read the complete Ouarzazate write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ouarzazate is where the day begins. Next is Medina of Marrakesh.
Marrakesh began as a camp. In about 1070, the Almoravids, a Berber dynasty from the Sahara, pitched their tents on this plain at the foot of the High Atlas and began to build a city, and within a century it was the capital of an empire that stretched from Spain to Senegal. The name Morocco comes from it. The medina, a walled maze of lanes with the red ochre colour that gives the city its nickname, is still the heart of the place, and the whole thing is a UNESCO site.
Read the complete Medina of Marrakesh write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Medina of Marrakesh comes up 60 km in. Next is Médina et le jardin d'Agdal.
The Agdal Gardens are a vast orchard on the southern edge of Marrakesh, a rectangle of olive, orange, pomegranate and apricot trees that stretches for about three kilometres behind high red walls. They were laid out in the twelfth century by the Almohad sultans, and later rulers extended them, and the great reservoirs at their heart, one of which is large enough to have been used for swimming lessons and boating parties by the sultans, are still filled with water brought from the Atlas by underground channels. The scale of the whole thing is hard to grasp from outside, but from the top of the walls you see a green plain stretching away toward the mountains.
Read the complete Médina et le jardin d'Agdal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
At least 129 km in you reach Médina et le jardin d'Agdal. Next is Jardin de la Menara.
Jardin de la Menara, about halfway. Next is back through Médina et le jardin d'Agdal.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Médina et le jardin d'Agdal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Médina et le jardin d'Agdal sits at 240 km, about halfway. Next is back through Medina of Marrakesh.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Medina of Marrakesh write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Medina of Marrakesh comes up 300 km in. Next is Ouarzazate.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ouarzazate write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ouarzazate closes the day.
Ouarzazate → Medina of Marrakesh is 206 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Médina et le jardin d'Agdal → Jardin de la Menara is 1 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Jardin de la Menara → back through Médina et le jardin d'Agdal is 1 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Medina of Marrakesh → Ouarzazate is 193 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.