Just across the Mediterranean Sea, the sensuous Selman Marrakesh opens 1 May, just outside the Medina in the foothills of the Atlas Mountains.

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Marrakesh sits at the foothills of the Atlas Mountains in the heart of Morocco, midway between the Mediterranean coast and the edge of the African interior.

BBC: Living in: Marrakesh

On my first trip to Morocco, in the early '70s, after renting a car in Tangiers, we drove southward hundreds of miles through Fez, over the Atlas Mountains and eventually deep into the Sahara.

WSJ: Magic-Carpet-Ride Chermoula

The four hour drive south from Marrakech winds through the Atlas mountains and tiny, dusty Berber villages (although many, surprisingly, not too tiny for an ATM) showered with blowing red sand under a blinding sun.

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The athletes' Moroccan adventure began in Marrakech, an ancient desert city with an incongruous backdrop -- the snowy Atlas Mountains to the southeast.

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"I worked as an English teacher in a town in the High Atlas Mountains in Morocco for two years, and quickly grew to love this part of the world, " he said.

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But upon arrival in the village of Imlil, the highest of the High Atlas mountains seems to soften.

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Based on a true story, it follows a group of Cistercian monks, living modestly among poor villagers in the little Tibhirine monastery in the Algerian Atlas Mountains.

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The snow-covered Atlas Mountains loomed in the distance.

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The last significant mountains before the Sahara are the arid, pink-and-ochre-coloured chain of the Anti Atlas, and beneath the arid, jagged mass of its two major peaks lie lush irrigated valleys and a string of oases.

BBC: Trekking the unexplored mountains of Morocco