With the brilliant whiteness of its lime washed walls and the sight of women enveloped in voluminous haiks, Essaouira, formerly Mogador, is a quint essentially Moroccan town and one of the most enchanting places in the country. By virtue of its location on this stretch of the Atlantic coast, where trade winds prevail almost all year round, the town enjoys a particularly pleasant climate. It is a prime location for surfing, but has managed to escape mass tourism. A mecca for hippies during the 1970s, it is still an artists’ town and is very fashionable with independent travellers. In the 7th century BC, the Phoenicians founded a base on the site where Essaouira now stands, and in the 1st century BC Juba II made it a centre of the manufacture of purple dye. The Portuguese established a trading and military bridgehead here in the 15th century, and named it Mogador. The town itself, however, was not built until around 1760, by the Alaouite sultan Sidi Mohammed ben Abdallah (Mohammed III), who had decided to set up a naval base here. The town, the harbour and the fortifications, in the style of European fortresses, were designed and built by Théodore Cornut, a renowned French architect who had worked for Louis XV.