Morocco, seen from Egypt and the Levant

Arabic and Islam, the call to prayer, the old cities built around mosques and markets: a Cairene will feel at home in the lanes of Fes, where Islamic heritage is as layered as in Cairo. Hospitality, family, tea and long evenings will feel familiar too.

Your dialect travels well. Moroccans grew up with Egyptian films and series and Levantine songs, and many switch to them, or to Fusha, as soon as they hear you.

Darija. It is fast, drops vowels and borrows from French, Spanish and Amazigh; many visitors from the Mashriq say they understand little of it at first. Give it a few days and the shared words start to surface.

The west. The Atlantic, the cedar forests and snows of the Atlas, the Amazigh language on public buildings: Morocco's landscape and its Amazigh roots are far from the Nile and the Levant.

Al-Andalus. For many Arab visitors, seeing the houses, gardens and music of the Andalusian families in Fes, Tetouan and Chefchaouen is the most moving part of the trip. And the medina of Fes itself, a living Islamic city still at work.

As neighbours in language and faith, and as the voices of so much of the television Moroccans grew up with. Beyond that we found no reliable source, and we won't make one up.

Begin with the Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca, then Fes for the oldest medina and al-Qarawiyyin, then north to the Andalusian towns of Chefchaouen and Tetouan, and out through Tangier, where Africa looks at Europe.