I really enjoyed my visit to this site, and it had a distinctly African feel to it, due to the mud brick architecture.

The village sits on a hill on the bank of a small river flowing down from the Atlas Mountains. It was reputedly founded in 757, and was started as the home for one family and the settlement has grown out of this. The tomb of its founder Ben-Haddou is at the base of the hill behind the town.

The front parts of the village are well restored, as this has been the setting of many films, from Lawrence of Arabia through to Gladiator. It has also been a testing ground for UNESCO and ICOMOS in preservation techniques. Therefore the first part of the town looks very impressive almost new, the higher up the hill you climb however the less restoration you see and this gives a good feel for what the site would be like with out the investment. It is quiet a nice climb up to the top (picture) but be prepared for a fair bit of rough ground, there is defiantly no paving here.

Many of the houses are still lived in, although most now cater for tourists as sellers of local, and not so local (Malian) artefacts. On the other side of the river, is a more modern part of town, where you will find restaurants and shops still mostly mud brick architecture though. You have to cross the river by stepping-stones which is fun.

We travelled out on a private day trip from Marrakesh that took in the High Atlas Mountains as well and this was a really great trip to make. On the way through the mountains saw plenty of other smaller Berber villages based on the same design as Ait Ben-Haddou, but that was defiantly the most impressive.

If you were doing it via public transport the best place to come from would be Ouarzazate, which is only about 30km and apparently it is quiet easy to hire a taxi for the trip. Alternatively you can ask the bus to drop you off at the turn off from the main road and sort out some transport to take you the 7km out to Ait Ben-Haddou, though you may not want to be stranded for too long at the turn off especially in summer as there was not much shade.

This was a really great day trip for us when twinned with a trip through the Atlas Mountains, well worth the visit and worth its place on the list.