Ouadane's pleasures are quiet ones. The town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, listed alongside Chinguetti as one of the ancient caravan cities of the Mauritanian Sahara, and what survives here is genuinely moving — crumbling coral-stone walls, a clifftop mosque with an ostrich-egg finial, date palms bending over a dry wadi.
Start on the cliff east of the modern settlement, where the ruins of the Ksar el Klali fort and the old mosque look out over the Adrar plateau. Then wind down through the date palm groves of the wadi before stopping in at the small museum. The library holds manuscripts from the caravan era — ask at the museum to arrange a visit.