Ifrane and the Cedar Forest

A French Built Hill Town Of The Late 1920s At Roughly 1,665 M With Steep Alpine Style Roofs, Beside The Middle Atlas Cedar Forest Where Barbary Macaques Are Seen Easily And At Close Range · Ifrane, Fes-Meknes

Ifrane looks like nowhere else in Morocco, and that is the point of it. The French laid the town out in 1929 as a hill station at roughly 1,665 m in the Middle Atlas, and it still plays the part: steep red roofs built for snow, stone villas, clipped verges, a small lake in the middle of town and cedar woods on every side. It is green, quiet and spotless, Morocco's own idea of a mountain holiday, and a visitor who came for souks and tilework can run out of things to look at within the hour. What justifies the drive is the forest on the road south towards Azrou - some of the last great stands of Atlas cedar, and the easiest place anywhere to watch Barbary macaques, the only macaque living outside Asia and a species listed as endangered. Which brings the instruction that matters most here: do not feed them. Feeding is why troops crowd the roadside laybys, why they come to car windows and why they turn aggressive. Honest caveats: the town has very little you can go inside, the main macaque stop is a commercial layby with vendors, and the forest itself is shrinking.

Hill town on the N8 about 60 km south of Fes, with the cedar forest and the Azrou macaque groves on the road south, Ifrane, Fes-Meknes, Morocco

The town, the lake walk and the forest roads have no opening hours and no gates; the cedar woods and the macaque laybys on the Ifrane to Azrou road are daylight places and there is nothing to be gained from being out there after dark. Shops and cafes keep a broad mid-morning to about 21:00 pattern, with many closing for a couple of hours in the early afternoon out of season, and the town genuinely empties midweek in November and in March. The Michlifen ski ground operates only when there is snow, usually some weeks between January and early March, and in a poor year it does not open at all - confirm locally rather than driving up on spec. Azrou's weekly souk is commonly said to be on Tuesday; confirm it before planning around it. Getting there: Ifrane is roughly an hour from Fes on the N8 by hired car or grand taxi, with CTM and Supratours coaches calling here on Fes to Azrou and Beni Mellal runs. Nothing needs booking ahead except a room in August or at new year, when the town fills with Moroccan families. Ramadan shortens daytime cafe hours.

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