Ifrane is one of the strangest sights in Morocco — a town of steep-roofed Alpine-style villas, flower gardens, and wide suburban streets planted in the Middle Atlas mountains at 1,650 metres. Built by the French in 1929 as a hill station escape from the summer heat, it looks more like a Swiss village than anything you expect to find in North Africa. It is probably the cleanest city in Morocco, and certainly one of the most expensive.
In winter, Ifrane gets genuine snowfall, and the nearby ski resort of Michlifen draws Moroccan families for a day on the slopes. The surrounding cedar forests of the Middle Atlas are home to Barbary macaques and excellent hiking — the easiest outing is the Val d'Ifrane valley walk to the Cascade des Vierges, and the lakes of the Middle Atlas circuit, starting with Dayet Aaoua, lie just to the north. Al Akhawayn University, an English-language institution built in the early 1990s, gives the town a college-town energy unusual for a Moroccan city of this size.