Marrakech

The light goes orange around six and everyone walks slower, making for the Djemaa el-Fna, where the air fills with cooking smoke and the call of storytellers. It is a big square, the centre of things, and the edges are tight with carts and people, a good place to watch the evening unfold.

Inside the medina walls, the lanes wind, narrow and full of things to see, so it is easy to get a little lost. This is part of it, finding a small shop, then another, the colours strong in the spice stalls and leather goods, a sort of organised chaos that works itself out.

A few days here often mean mornings spent wandering, finding quiet courtyards with fountains inside the riads. The afternoons can be for exploring the gardens outside the old city, a good contrast, then up to a rooftop for tea as the sun goes down, watching the colour shift over the rooftops.

The city presses against the foothills of the Atlas Mountains, so the air feels a bit different when you look east. There is a sense of something larger beyond the city walls, a landscape that changes with the seasons, always in view.