Azrou With Kids

Azrou With Kids: A Stopover Between the Sahara and Fes

If you are driving the long way between the Sahara and Fes, Azrou with kids is the stop that saves the day. It sits up in the Middle Atlas where the air finally cools off, there are monkeys in the cedar forest about five minutes from town, and it breaks a seven hour drive into two manageable ones. Here is how we used our one night, and why one night is exactly right.

Azrou Morocco is a fantastic stop if you are traveling through the country with kids.  Located in the middle Atlas mountains, it is both a nice overnight stop coming from the Sahara or a fun day trip from Fes (about an hour from Fes).  We were coming from the Sahara, and instead of making the straight 7 hour drive to Fes, we decided to give the kids a rest and stay the night in Azrou and see some monkeys!  Azrou is possibly most famous for their cedar forest full of macaques, although the surrounding beautiful countryside should not be overlooked.  We felt like we were driving through Italy.

Ifran is about half way between Azrou and Fes and is a great place to stop for a bite to eat.  It is an English language university town and therefore filled with a younger population.  It is also looks like you were transported to somewhere in Europe, as the architecture is clearly not of Moroccan origin.  It feels a bit disconnected after exploring Morocco and then entering this setting but it is a beautiful town nonetheless.  It also has some really great eateries!

Where We Stayed in Azrou

We opted for a break from Riads and booked a European style hotel in Azrou Morocco for the night at Le Palais des Cerisiers.  It had great reviews, and was in my opinion, the nicest hotel in Azrou by way of pictures.  We were not disappointed when we arrived.  The hotel staff was very polite.  We had paid for the lowest cost room and the hotel let us choose from several options on arrival for no extra charge.  We opted for the “apartment” which was really a stand alone house next to the larger hotel.  It had two bedrooms and a living space.  We were also greeted with a peacock on our roof…

The hotel grounds were beautiful.  Aside from a pool and tennis courts, there was a cherry orchard across from our apartment and it was cherry season!!!  The girls were so excited to pick and eat as many cherries as their tummies could handle.

They served a delicious complimentary European style breakfast which was appreciated after eating two straight weeks of Moroccan style breakfast.

The hotel is a little outside of the town, about a five minute drive, so make sure you have access to a car if you plan on staying here and want to explore the area.  The macaques were also about a five minute drive from the hotel which is what many people want to see when visiting the area.

To book a room, see the Le Palais des Cerisiers listing on booking.com.

What to Do in Azrou With Kids

See the Barbary macaques!  This is a great thing to do and see for kids and adults alike.  We saw them in two places.  First on our way into Azrou, we stopped in an area not as well known to the tourists and observed the macaques in their habitat.  It was nice to watch them in a peaceful setting.

Second time around we headed to the more touristic place in the cedar forest were you can see and feed the macaques.  There were locals selling peanuts (for feeding), local made goods and offering horse rides.  Full disclosure, the macaques in this area are pretty aggressive as they have adapted to humans and now expect food from them.  Be mindful with young children and anything you have in your hands.  If you think that you can simply hold a bag of peanuts up really high and hand them out as you please, you will be wrong.  They will swarm you and grab at you and your clothing to get to them, it is a bit intense.  You must carefully hide them and don’t put them in anything that makes a crinkly bag like noise.  Viona was able to successfully feed them and had a fun time.  Kaida on the other hand was like, get me away from those crazy monkeys and let’s ride a horse!

Shop for clothing!  Our driver mentioned that Azrou is known for its textiles and tailoring.  We hit the souks (because I never need an excuse to go shopping) to see what it was all about.  After shopping in the Marrakech souks, I noticed that the clothing here did seem to be a bit better made and was a bit less expensive.  The downtown and souks were very walkable and not daunting in size like Marrakech and Fes.  Sure there were less items to see, but the quality and the prices were a fair trade.  I picked up this super cute dress (below) for Viona for the equivalent of $7 USD, would have been closer to $12 in a bigger city.  It is made of a thick silk like fabric and really great quality.  Happy mommy, happy Viona!

Where to Eat in Azrou and Ifran

In Azrou we ate at Restaurant Le Rocher D’Atlas Azrou.  It is a very modern restaurant with awesome vibes and setting.  That said, the servers were quite overwhelmed with the amount of patrons and the food was ok but not great.  We chose to eat here because were in desperate need of a break from Moroccan food that we had been eating for two weeks and coming from the desert where the only option is grilled meat and tajine.  This joint offered a variety of cuisines, decadent pastries and even milkshakes which the kids were overjoyed to see.  This is not the place for you if you are looking for a great culinary experience.  It IS the place for you if you need a break from Moroccan food and have kids that will be dazzled by their milkshakes and fun presentation.

Pizza in Ifran!  We stopped in Ifran for lunch on our way up to Fes.  As I mentioned previously this is a university town with a very young population and that has led to an increase of hip eateries.  There were several places with great reviews, but we were traveling mid week during covid so the only one open was My Lil’ Rome, pizza!  Dawson and the kids were thrilled as pizza is one of their favorite foods.  The kids had ordered a couple of pizzas throughout the trip and they were equivalent to mediocre frozen pizza, about what we expected given where we were traveling.  But then My Lil’ Rome happened and they had great pizza!  Maybe it’s because we had gone so long without good pizza, but it was really, really good!!!  It is possibly the closest thing to real Italian pizza you will find in the whole country.  And the staff was very kind.

The other restaurant we were hoping to try in Ifran was Foodie, but it wasn’t open while we were there.  If you are craving a good burger while you are driving through, that is the place you want to stop!

Planning Azrou With Kids: What We Would Tell a Friend

Give it one night, not two. There is too much else to see in Morocco, and Azrou does its job in about eighteen hours.

See the macaques twice if you can. Stop at the quiet roadside spot on the way in so the kids watch them behaving like actual wild animals, then go to the cedar forest where you can feed them. That order matters, because once you have been swarmed the peaceful version is a lot less interesting.

Hide the peanuts. The macaques in the touristy part of the forest have completely figured out humans, and anything that sounds like a crinkly bag will get you mobbed. Keep the bag out of sight, and out of little hands, until you are ready.

Have a backup for the kid who is done. Viona loved feeding them and Kaida wanted nothing to do with it, which is exactly why the horse rides parked right there were worth the money.

You need a car. Le Palais des Cerisiers sits about five minutes outside town and the macaques are another five minutes past that. Nothing here is walkable from the hotel.

Do your shopping here instead of the big cities. The souks in Azrou are small, calm and genuinely walkable, and the tailoring is better made and cheaper. A dress that cost about seven dollars here would have been closer to twelve in Marrakech.

Eat something that is not tajine. After two straight weeks of Moroccan breakfasts, the milkshakes in Azrou and the pizza in Ifran did more for morale than any monument did.

If you are piecing together the wider route, Azrou sits neatly between the Sahara Desert and Fes, and it was one stop on the same Morocco trip that took us through the Ourika Valley, Ouarzazate and Volubilis and Moulay Idriss with Sun Trails.

Azrou Morocco was a really great one night stopover.  I wouldn’t recommend staying longer than that as there is so much to see in other areas of the country.  Check out our experience in the Sahara Desert and the fabulous city of Fes.