Marrakesh sits in the plain at the foot of the High Atlas, which makes it an ideal base for escaping the city heat for a day. The easiest way to reach the mountain valleys is to find a grand taxi at Bab er Robb; if you are a small group it can be worth chartering the whole car and having the driver wait while you walk and eat lunch by a river.
The classic half-day run is up the Ourika valley, a green, terraced cleft south of the city dotted with Berber villages and roadside cafés perched over the water — noticeably cooler than downtown and busy with Marrakshis on Fridays and weekends. Further up the same range, Imlil is the trailhead village for Mount Toubkal and the wider Toubkal massif; it is a worthwhile day trip in its own right for the mule tracks and walnut groves, and the obvious starting point if you want to keep climbing.
Closer to town there are two quieter outings worth the short drive: ANIMA Garden, the late artist André Heller's sculpture-filled botanical garden on the Ourika road, and Cactus Thiemann, the largest cactus farm in Africa, out on the plain to the north.
