Agadir lost 15,000 people and its entire medina in 15 seconds on 29 February 1960. This three-day route traces what survived — the Oufella fortress walls, the Portuguese trading past, the Amazigh agadirs — and how a city rebuilt itself from zero.
Fortress built 1540 by Saadian sultan Mohammed ash-Sheikh on the 236m hill, later Dutch-garrisoned; the Arabic-Dutch inscription over the gate reads 'Fear God and honour the King, 1746'. Only the ramparts survived 1960. Cable car 120 MAD return, walk free.
Passage Aït Souss, Avenue Hassan II. Houses the Bert Flint collection of Souss Amazigh material culture: silver fibulae, enamelled Tiznit jewellery, carved granary doors and Anti-Atlas carpets. Open Tue-Sat 09:30-17:30, entry 20 MAD.
Collective fortified granary 15km north near Aourir, the building type that gave the city its name — 'agadir' means granary-fortress in Tachelhit. Tiered cells once stored grain, argan oil and legal deeds under an elected amine. Guardian tip 30-50 MAD.
Below the kasbah stood the Portuguese fort of Santa Cruz do Cabo de Gué, founded 1505 and lost to the Saadians in 1541 — a defeat that began Portugal's retreat from Morocco. Foundations and the harbour anchorage are visible from the port road.
Memorial garden gifted by the Portuguese city of Olhão, twinned with Agadir after 1960. Inside is the Mémoire d'Agadir museum with photographs of the 15-second quake that killed a third of the population at 23:40 on 29 February 1960. Entry 20 MAD.
The old Talborjt quarter was never rebuilt: 1960 rubble was bulldozed into a grassed mound sealed as a collective grave for the unrecovered dead. Street patterns of the vanished medina are still legible under the grass between Avenue President Kennedy and the hill.
Centrepiece of the 1960s reconstruction plan drawn by Jean-François Zevaco and the Agadir Reconstruction Bureau, built to be earthquake-resistant. The surrounding Nouveau Talborjt grid is a rare intact example of Moroccan post-independence modernism.
The boulevard laid out by the reconstruction planners links the royal palace, the prefecture and the Municipal Theatre — all Zevaco-era concrete. Interpretation panels along the Vallée des Oiseaux explain how the 1960 seismic code shaped every façade height.
Built from 1992 by Italian-Moroccan architect Coco Polizzi to revive the craft techniques lost in 1960: rammed earth, Taroudant stone, carved cedar. Craftsmen work on site. Open daily 09:00-18:00, entry 60 MAD, guided tour included.
Anza was a separate Amazigh fishing settlement absorbed by Agadir after the quake; its cliff exposes dinosaur trackways and the pre-1960 coast road. The village kept its low houses because reconstruction funding stopped at the city boundary.
Argan pressing by hand is the Souss economy that predates the resort city by centuries; the cooperatives founded from 1996 revived the women's stone-crushing method. Demonstrations free, oil 180-250 MAD per 500ml, amlou 90 MAD.
Evening gathering ground in Nouveau Talborjt where rways — the itinerant Tachelhit poet-musicians of the Souss — still perform. Their sung chronicles carried news of the 1960 disaster across the Anti-Atlas long before radio reached the villages.