Casablanca

Half a day is enough to read Casablanca properly, provided somebody is reading it with you. This private tour starts at the Hassan II Mosque, the only mosque in Morocco that non-Muslim visitors may enter, and works back through the city that grew around it: the Art Deco boulevards of the French protectorate, the market halls, and the Habous quarter built in the 1920s as a medina from scratch.

The full day is the half-day tour without the rushing. The same landmarks are there, but so are the places that need time: the old medina behind the port, the Jewish quarter and its museum, Rick's Cafe on the corner of the harbour wall, and a long enough stop at lunch to sit down rather than grab something.

Casablanca is usually seen through a windscreen. This one is done on foot, through the two quarters that reward walking: the old medina behind the port, which predates the French city by centuries, and the Habous quarter, which was designed in the 1920s to look older than it is.

A shore excursion lives or dies on the clock. This one is built backwards from your all-aboard time: the ship's schedule sets the route, not the other way round, and you are collected at the cruise terminal in Casablanca rather than at a meeting point you have to find.

Mohammed V Airport is thirty-five minutes from the Hassan II Mosque, which makes a long connection in Casablanca worth leaving the terminal for. You are collected at arrivals, shown the city, and returned with time to check in again.