Tangier in one day: from the medina to Cap Malabata

A day is enough for the essentials of Tangier, as long as you do not spend half of it looking for a taxi. This is the order that works: the medina in the morning while it is still cool, the view at midday, the bay in the afternoon and Cap Malabata to finish. All of it fits in one charge.

Morning: the medina, on foot

Park the scooter at the Grand Socco. It is the zero point of this day: four minutes from anywhere in the centre, and the only sensible place to start the medina from. The Mendoubia gardens are three hundred metres away, behind the square, and are the best place in town to work out that you should slow down.

Then it climbs. The lanes of the Kasbah are cobbled and often end in a staircase: leave the scooter below. The Kasbah Museum is at the top, in the old sultan's palace, and is worth the hour it takes. Give the whole morning to that one and a half kilometres.

Midday: Café Hafa

Two kilometres, eight minutes from the medina, 7 % of the battery there and back. Café Hafa is a set of stepped terraces above the sea, west of the city. You drink mint tea sitting on a low wall and, on a clear day, you see the Spanish coast opposite. It is also the only point of this day where you do nothing for an hour — keep it.

Afternoon: the Corniche, then Cap Malabata

Drop back down to the bay and take the Corniche: 2.2 km, ten minutes, flat and straight, the municipal beach on your left. Then keep going east. The road follows the bay round and reaches Cap Malabata after 10.6 km, twenty minutes from the medina.

The cape is the best viewpoint over Tangier, because you see the whole city at once from across the water. There is a lighthouse and room to park. It is also the far point of the day: 35 % of the battery there and back.

The battery over a full day

The far point costs 35 %. Everything else on this list happens within two and a half kilometres of the Grand Socco. One charge therefore covers the day with room to spare, provided you start at 100 % — do not try to charge at lunchtime, a full charge takes 4 to 5 hours from a normal socket.

The order of things

• 9.30am — pick up the scooter, park at the Grand Socco.
• 10am — Mendoubia, then the medina and the Kasbah on foot.
• 1pm — Café Hafa, mint tea, an hour of doing nothing.
• 3pm — the Corniche eastwards, a stop at the municipal beach.
• 4.30pm — Cap Malabata, the lighthouse and the view back at the city.
• 7pm — home around the bay, lit the whole way.

A day tariff runs 24 hours from handover, not from our opening hours. A scooter picked up at 9.30am is yours until 9.30 the next morning: the evening on the Corniche is included.