Safi
Morocco'S Pottery Capital, Where The Kilns On The Colline Des Potiers Have Fired The Country'S Tableware For Centuries, Under A Portuguese Sea Fort And Beside One Of The Heaviest Right Hand Point Breaks In The Atlantic · Safi, Marrakesh-Safi
Safi is a working industrial port that happens to be the pottery capital of Morocco, and it makes no effort to charm anyone, which is most of its appeal. On the hill above the medina the Colline des Potiers has been firing clay for centuries: wood-fed kilns, drying yards, apprentices painting the green glaze the town is known for, and workshops that will sell you the same pieces you saw in Marrakesh for a fraction of the price. Below it the Portuguese left a sea fort of 1508 standing right on the water and the unfinished choir of a cathedral inside the medina, both of which you can walk into for small change. The port lands sardines in quantities that put Safi among the largest sardine ports anywhere, and the fish grills at lunchtime are the best cheap eating on this coast. South of town the phosphate works are visible and sometimes smellable, and offshore there is a right-hand point break that serious surfers travel a long way for.
Medina and the Colline des Potiers below the Portuguese sea fort, on the Atlantic between El Jadida and Essaouira, Safi, Marrakesh-Safi, Morocco
The pottery hill works to a working day, roughly morning to late afternoon with a long midday break, and it is quiet on Friday around prayers - go in the morning if you want to see kilns being loaded rather than shops being tended. Qasr al-Bahr, the sea fort, keeps daylight hours with a small charge and a caretaker, as does the ceramics museum in the Kechla above it; both close earlier in winter. The fish market and the grills by the port run from the late morning landings into the afternoon and are at their best around one o'clock. Medina souks are daily. Trains connect Safi to Benguerir for the Casablanca and Marrakesh lines, and CTM coaches run along the coast; the station and the coach yard are both a short taxi from the medina.