Ifrane

Understand

Ifrane is one of the most beautiful places in Morocco, residing on the Atlas mountain with a population of roughly 80,000 people. The projects of the current Moroccan king - like the university and huge new hotel - have had a large impact on the town. It is not a large town with the majority of the population being farmers, sheepherders, etc, and living outside of the town borders.

The main language in Ifrane is Berber, but you can also hear a great deal of Arabic and French. It is home to Al-Akhawayn University, an American-style university taught in English, French, and Arabic. Nearly all university students will be able to converse fluently in English, but most of the native residents can not.

The climate is mostly cold with a beautiful mild summer, with a great deal of rain in the first few months of the year. The people are overall very friendly.

Overall, there is very little reason to specifically visit Ifrane if you have limited time in Morocco. Unless you're a student here or a member of the king's entourage when he visits, there's not a huge amount to visit here- a carved lion, some parks, funky roofs, lots of storks, outdoorsy things, and a Sunday souq pretty much summarize the town.

Get in

Most of the buses comes from Fez and Meknes, which are the two major neighboring cities, or pass through on their route from Marrakesh to Fez.

Get around

Most places are within walking distance, but petit taxis are also readily available. The minimum fare is 5 dirham for small distances (e.g. marché → centre ville), longer distances will be 10 dirham.

Grand taxi drivers are a little more unscrupulous, so try to be aware of how much you should be paying for any given trip.

See

thumb|350px|Map of Ifrane

Places to visit: Barbary Macaques. A huge number of macaques live in the woods around the town, and if you're lucky, you can sometimes see them in the town itself. The southern edge of the town, near the marche, often has gangs of apes hanging around.

Do

However, Ifrane's main attraction is its natural beauty. It is highly encouraged to hike in the area. You can easily rent a horse and guide for a few hours. It is also only a short distance from Ifrane to a place where you can find and feed wild monkeys.

- Foret Cedre Gourant: A good starting point for many trekking/hiking routes. You can go there by car and park in a touristic area where you can take some photos of monkeys and old trees, or rent a guide for excursions.

Drink

There are two centers of nightlife in Ifrane: Grand Hotel, and Aglemem.

The Grand Hotel has a dance club and offers expensively priced alcohol. The clubs are most popular on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings, and play only House/Techno music. Aglemem is a bar/restaurant that occasionally holds live music events. Cafe le Chamonix also sells alcohol. It is probably the cheapest place in town, but still quite expensive.

Sleep

There is no budget accommodation in Ifrane. The best is probably to stay in Azrou (15 minutes by grand taxi, ~6 dirham).

Apartments can be rented from 100-150 dirham per day, although finding one with clean sheets seems to be impossible.

Several midrange/splurge hotels are found in the city center:

Go next

The grand taxi (share taxi) station, which is connected to the bus station, has regular connections to Fes and Meknes, as well as to smaller towns in the area such as Al Hajeb, Azrou and Immouzer Kandar. None of the smaller towns have any mind-blowing attractions, but are worth a visit if you want to see something of the real Morocco away from the tourists. The taxi drivers all seem honest and do not seem to charge foreigners any more than Moroccans, and because of the university, many of the passengers are likely to be students who are able to speak English and are likely willing to help you navigate.

The bus station has regular coaches to major cities throughout Morocco, but because departure times to many cities are very irregular, it may be worth checking the bus times the day before you plan to leave.