Nature
The Atlas Mountains
Three mountain ranges cross Morocco like a spine. They create the country's climate, define its cultures, and separate the Mediterranean world from the Sahara.
Ifrane
Ifrane does not look like Morocco. The French built it in the 1930s as a hill station — a retreat from the summer heat of the plains — and it still looks like a small town in the Alps. Red-roofed villas, trimmed hedges, a municipal lake, and streets that are noticeably, almost suspiciously clean.
The town sits at 1,665 metres in the Middle Atlas. Al Akhawayn University, a prestigious English-language institution modelled on American liberal arts colleges, occupies a campus on the edge of town. The stone lion in the town centre — carved by a German prisoner of war during World War II — is the most photographed object in the Middle Atlas.
Ifrane is the base for the Ifrane National Park — cedar and oak forest, Barbary macaques, and winter skiing at Michlifen, a small resort 17 kilometres south. The drive from Fes takes about an hour. The temperature is always 10 to 15 degrees cooler than the plains below.
Places
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Neighborhoods
Ifrane
A town built by the French in 1929 to look like a Swiss alpine village — chalet-style houses with steep tiled roofs, parks, and a clarity of air that no Moroccan city at lower altitude can match. At 1,665 metres in the Middle Atlas cedar forest, Ifrane is where Moroccans go to escape the summer heat and where the country's ski resort is located. The stone lion in the central square was carved by a German prisoner of war in 1930.
Nature
Ifrane Cedar Forest
The cedar forest of the Middle Atlas is one of the largest in the world — ancient Atlas cedars, some of them over 800 years old, spread across the plateau around Ifrane and Azrou. The forest is home to the largest population of Barbary macaques outside captivity. The trees themselves are extraordinary: gnarled, enormous, fragrant with resin.
Nature
Oukaimeden
Morocco's main ski resort at 2,650 metres in the High Atlas, 75 kilometres from Marrakech — the southernmost ski resort in Africa, operating from December to March when the Atlas snowpack is sufficient. The lifts are old, the runs are limited, and the experience of skiing while Marrakech bakes in 15°C sunshine below is entirely surreal.
Stories from Ifrane
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Journeys that pass through Ifrane
Ifrane→fes→azrou→midelt
4dInterest
Middle Atlas Cedar Forests
Ancient cedars, Barbary macaques, and Morocco's alpine surprise — an hour from Fes and a world from anything you expected.
Ifrane→fes→azrou→midelt
5dRoute
Middle Atlas Discovery
Cedar forests, Barbary macaques, and lakes that could be Switzerland. The Morocco nobody expects.
Plan your visit
Coming to Ifrane?
Every journey we design includes private guiding, accommodation chosen for character rather than category, and the kind of access that takes years in Morocco to arrange.
Plan Your Trip