John Mortimer, author

Essaouira is the most incredibly beautiful town. It has white walls, bright blue doors, a huge, sandy beach, and little coloured fishing boats looking just like a Van Gogh painting.

It has two of the best fish restaurants in the world. One of them, Sam's On The Beach, is on a jetty overlooking the boats. I've always been very happy sitting in Sam's watching the fish being brought in.

Yves Saint Laurent, fashion designer

Morocco introduced me to colour. Shades of earth and sand, but also colours from the street: women in turquoise and mauve kaftans. And that sky.

· Yves Saint Laurent has a house in Marrakesh.

Giles Milton, author

Azemmour is a crumbling old port about an hour's drive south of Casablanca. It is one of those walled Moroccan cities, and in the sixteenth century it was an important port, built by the Portuguese. The reason I first went to Azemmour, during my gap year, was that a fairly eccentric relative of mine used to live there, in the former palace of the Pasha. He spent all his time, effort and money on restoring this palace to what it would have looked like in the sixteenth century.

It is a stunningly beautiful place with a central atrium and a Portuguese fountain. Moroccan tiles have been laid on the floor, there are stained-glass windows, a roof terrace that affords views over the estuary, and even a tomb to a holy man.

I love the Portuguese influence on this lovely port. You can see this in the towns on the Moroccan west coast. They still have their walls and the fortifications, but they are crumbling, which adds to their attraction.

· Giles Milton is the author of Samurai William: The Adventurer Who Unlocked Japan.

Esther Freud, author

The first time I went back to Morocco was when I'd just finished writing my book, Hideous Kinky. I went back to check that I hadn't made the whole place up, before finishing the last draft. I found that everything was very much as I'd remembered it.

I still found that I was looking at Marrakesh through the eyes of a child. Morocco makes you feel quite child-like. It is so extraordinary: the market like caves of treasure, the people in their burnous cloaks like people from the Arabian Nights. And over it all hangs an air of menace, the hustling, the dark lanes and secret doorways.

· Esther Freud's book, Hideous Kinky, which was turned into a Hollywood film in 1998, is the story of her travels through Morocco at the age of five with her mother.