Tiny houses & cabins in Ifrane & the Cedar Middle Atlas

Ifrane confounds every expectation of Morocco: a town of steep gabled roofs and stork nests at 1,665 m, built by the French in 1928 and kept immaculate ever since. The chalets here are the real thing — small wooden houses with fireplaces on farms and orchards between Ifrane, Ben Smim and Azrou, where nights are cold enough for a wood stove most of the year. In January you may need snow chains; in July the mountain air is the reason Moroccan families flee the heat of Fès up here.

The setting is what you come for: the largest cedar forest in Africa starts just outside Azrou, home to Barbary macaques you will meet on any walk, and a string of volcanic lakes — Dayet Aoua, Dayet Ifrah — threads the plateau north of town. Days fill with forest hikes, lake loops and trout lunches; in winter there is even skiing at Michlifen. It is the one region of Morocco where a cabin holiday feels genuinely alpine.