Vallée des Roses · Erg Chigaga · Morocco
Vallée des Roses
Every May, when the valley turns pink. A retreat for women.
The week the valley smells of roses.
For three weeks each May, the Vallée des Roses does something the rest of the year cannot imagine. Ten kilometres of hedgerows around Kelaat M'Gouna open at once, and the whole valley smells of damask rose before sunrise. Women walk the rows at first light, when the oil is still in the petal, and by nine the baskets are full and the day is done.
We take a group of eight to fourteen women into that week. You pick in the cool hours alongside the cooperatives, learn how the petals become water and oil, eat in family houses, walk the high plateaux above the valley, and bathe in springs that come out of the rock. Nobody is selling you anything. It is simply the valley, at the one moment it gives everything.
Then the road turns south. Three nights in a private camp in Erg Chigaga, the most remote dune system in Morocco, one group at a time. After a week of colour and scent, the desert offers the opposite: emptiness, silence, and a sky with nothing in it but stars. Women arrive here as strangers and leave as something else entirely.
Reserve my placeWhat awaits
The harvest
The morning harvest, drying
Baskets from the cooperative
Rose water, distilled here
The valley, from above
Eight days
Arrival, Marrakech
Pick-up at Marrakech Menara. One night in a private riad in the medina. Dinner on the terrace, first circle with the group.
South through the Atlas
The Tizi n'Tichka pass, Aït Benhaddou, then Ouarzazate and the Dades. Arrival in the valley in the late afternoon, when the light goes gold on the rose hedges.
The harvest
Up before dawn to pick with the women of the cooperative, while the oil is still in the flower. Breakfast in the fields. Afternoon at the distillery, then hammam with rose water.
The valley, slowly
Walking the high plateaux above Kelaat M'Gouna, lunch in a family house, natural springs in the afternoon. Evening circle, henna and mint tea on the kasbah roof.
Into the desert
South through the Draa palm groves to M'hamid, then the piste into Erg Chigaga. Arrival at our camp at sunset. Fire, music, first night under the stars.
Dunes and silence
Sunrise yoga on the ridge. A slow day inside the Erg: rest, walking with nomad guides, sandboarding for those who want it. Guided stargazing after dinner.
The last full day
Sunset camel ride into the dunes, closing circle around the fire, Berber music until late. The night everyone remembers.
Return
Sunrise tea at the camp, then the road back to Marrakech. Transfers to the airport arranged around your flight.
Practical
These weeks run with a partner
This retreat is not on open sale. We build it with a studio, a club or a clinic that brings its own group, and we open a date around their season rather than ours. Tell us who you would bring and when, and we will come back with a week.
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Where you stay
Superior accommodation, chosen on the ground by our own experts.
Nothing on this site was booked from a catalogue. Every riad, camp, kasbah and guesthouse was found, visited and slept in by one of our experts before it was ever offered to a guest. The standard is superior throughout, and the reason is practical: after a day of walking, surfing or altitude, comfort is not a luxury, it is what makes the next day possible.
Visited before it is offered
Our team travels the country year-round. If one of us has not slept there, it does not go into a programme.
Original, never generic
Private riads, our own exclusive-use camp in the dunes, restored family kasbahs, guesthouses in Berber villages. Places you cannot book from a screen.
Comfort as a working tool
Real beds, hot water, quiet rooms, proper food. Recovery is part of the programme, not an afterthought.
Groups & circles
Coming as a group?
Six of you or more, and the whole retreat can be arranged around your circle. Tell us the size and the dates, and we prepare a proposal for you.
Request a group proposal→A departure for your circle alone
A private date set aside for your group, at the pace and in the season that suit you.
One group at a time, never mixed
You are never placed among strangers. The camp, the table and the guides are yours.
Group rate and privatisation on request
For six guests or more we prepare a tailored proposal. Simply ask.
Eight days. One valley. One group of women.
The harvest lasts three weeks a year. Places are limited to fourteen, and we run one group at a time.