The smell of fresh bread hovers from the bakeries across the medieval street along with the charcoal smoke.
The men dressed in bournous squeeze themselves into the little cafes that had just opened their doors.
Horses, donkeys, mopeds, and bicycles compete with pedestrians for their living space on the street.
Merchants splash water in front of their stores to prevent dusting.
It’s morning in Marrakech Medina, the old town of this enchanting Moroccan city.
If you prefer to read in Finnish continue here:
Marrakeshin medina on käärmenlumoajien paratiisi.
Founded in 1062 and with more than 900,000 inhabitants, Marrakech is Morocco’s fourth largest city.
And the most famous tourist destination.
The name itself promises snake enchanters, bustling bazaars, and mosque prayer invitations.
It has attracted travelers for ages and still does.
Although tourism has inevitably shaped the city, it still lives its own centuries-old traditions, regardless of visitors.
The sounds and smells of Marrakech Medina
The Medina of Marrakech is naturally a tourist destination.
Inside its twelve-kilometer-long reddish walls, built in the 12th century, is a maze of numerous bazaars, souks, squares, streets, and alleys. Into which it’s easy for the visitor to get lost.
There are men standing on the corners of the street. They are ready to guide the tourist to anywhere he wants – for a fee, of course.
However, aimless strolling around the city is part of the charm of Marrakech and its old town Medina.
Go where your nose faces and look curiously around the next corner.
You’ll find the most important sightseeing sooner or later. There will be signs on the streets to lead your way.
And just as the crowd and noise start to feel too distressing, a street opens up around the corner with no soul on it.
The Medina is a busy area of trade, but also still inhabited. The bazaar business in particular can be seen, heard, and smelled.
Marrakech is all about sounds and smells.
The scents of spices, herbs, organic perfumes and soaps, argan oil, leather, wool, and mint are mixed with the smell of horses and donkeys, their droppings, and mopeds exhaust fumes.
Merchants shout, doormen lure into restaurants, mopeds squirm and people chatter.
Occasionally an invitation to the mosque echoes.
Still, shopping in Medina is pretty tolerable.
How to shop in Marrakech Medina
Merchants often invite their customers for a glass of mint tea. Unfortunately they’ll also often tell those thousand and one times heard jokes about offering the Berber whiskey.
You can chat with them while sipping your tea and think if you want to buy something or not. There is no obligation to buy.
(Tanja’s note: However, if you’re not going to buy anything, don’t bargain. Only make a counter-offer if you’re really willing to buy.)
Moroccan slippers called babouches, spices, natural cosmetics, decorative ceramics, carpets, leather goods, and even lamps are good gifts.
Also locals do their shopping in the Medina bazaars, so it’s not just a tourist trap.
(Tanja shouts from the side again: The deeper you disappear into the souk area, the more likely you are to find something genuine and reasonably priced.)
On the outskirts of the souks, and especially near the Storytellers’ Square (Jamaa el-Fna), the products are overpriced and the quality of the goods may not be the best.
Go deeper and don’t worry, sooner or later you’ll find your way out.
Visit a tannery
Check out a tannery located near the Berber market, where indigenous Berbers bring their sheep’s skins from the visible Atlas Mountains to the city for tanning.
You’ll surely find a guy (or he finds you) willing to show you around the tannery. Yes, it is a tourist thing to do, yet interesting.
The tannery is located on the roof of the building, where a stench spreading from the tanning pools would burn the mucous membranes of the nose if the guest were not given a bunch of mint leaves as a “Berber gas mask” under the nose.
This joke may not make fun of those who know history, because in the Rif War, the Berbers would have had use for even real gas masks.
The guide expects to get a small tip for his service.
The products are sold for example opposite the tannery in a Berber-owned leather shop, with an interesting selection of bags.
Shopping in Bab Doukkala
You can also shop elsewhere than in the big souks of the Medina. On the west side of it, in the area of Bab Doukkala, there are courtyards in the middle of the local settlement, surrounded by artisan and merchant shops.
We bought eucalyptus crystals and black cumin that can be dissolved in tea or hot water. – Traditional way to prevent and ease flu!
Bab Doukkala also has antique shops.
Located on Arset Aouzel Street, Mustapha Blaoui’s huge interior design department store makes it difficult to compete.
The modest-looking warehouse building has carpets, lamps, sofas, chairs, tables, kitchens, and whatever else a person needs to decorate their home.
Transportation anywhere in the World can be arranged.
A couple of doors ahead, designer V. Barkowski’s store sells interior textiles and bags suitable for more minimalist taste.
Stay in riad
Not only locals but tourists too can live in the Medina and even comfortably. Riads are old residential buildings that have been converted for hotel use. There are hundreds of them in Marrakesh alone.
Riads are small hotels, often with only a few rooms.
In Marrakech, they are located on two floors around a courtyard. A complimentary breakfast and, of course, mint tea at check-in are often served in the courtyard.
How to find your riad aka accommodation, literally
Arriving after more than a 24-hour flight from New Zealand to Marrakech we were exhausted. We used the simplest way and took a taxi from the airport to the gates of Medina, the Storytellers Square, Jemaa el-Fna.
From there we searched our way to riad we had booked in advance.
The lodge is conveniently close to that famous square, making it easy to find on a Marrakech scale.
Admittedly, we made a mistake of letting a local man to guide us for the rest of our trip. Of course, we had to pay for it. This was a bit annoying, but in our riad, it was explained that the man had had bad adversities.
He was almost penniless, so giving him a few coins was a charity, a very good thing to do.
This taught us something about the neighborhood nature of Medina: People in their own quarter are known and cared for when needed.
(T: However, some of the “guides” are just hopeful lucky ones waiting for prosperous tourists.)
It was so early that our room was not ready. No worries: We were seated in a nice courtyard lodge by the small pool and a big breakfast was brought in front of us. And it didn’t take long to get the room.
Language and addresses are a bit complicated
In addition to Arabic, the friendly person who received us spoke only French, which is the second language in Morocco, except in the northernmost part. Good for that, our Arabic skills don’t include many words.
Of course, English is often spoken by the service personnel in Marrakech as well.
The riad address system is a bit complicated. Sometimes they are located down the street and are easily accessible, and the address is not a big headache. Often, however, they hide in the middle of a large and maze-like block, a derb.
In this case, the address of the block is written on the wall at the mouth of the alley leading to its interior and the riad can be found inside the block.
For example, one of our favorite riad Ta’achchaqa is as hard to find as its name implies. When you valiantly proceed into the heart of an 18th-century block, on one door you’ll find the right house number. It doesn’t have the name of the riad on the door.
The good thing about a location like this is that the riad is even calmer than usual. Thick exterior walls keep the hustle and bustle of the street away.
Knock on the heavens’ door
The usual way to get into the riad is to knock on the door, some even have a doorbell. The staff thus sees the visitors already at the door and those inside the walls of the riad are known.
In Ta’achchaqa, the doors of the rooms didn’t even have locks, just latches.
Rooms are usually spacious and simple but comfortable, even luxuriously furnished.
The private bathroom is almost a matter of course. Even from a good riad, you can get a room in the off-season for less than forty euros per night.
Dining on your private rooftop terrace
Some riads have their own restaurant, but the best food is in those where the dinner is ordered in the morning. Staff buys ingredients in the afternoon and food is served at dinner time.
Ta’achchaqa was a great example of this. A good three-course dinner costs around twenty euros a person, a bottle of wine the same. Meals are catered on an atmospheric rooftop terrace. The breakfast is served in the same place.
We dream of going back one day to have a writing retreat in its unbroken peace. Dipping into the bathtub in the dark-toned bathroom and talking to the ruler of the atrium courtyard, the gray macaw.
We wanted to try different riads, but we would have liked to stay here longer. Unfortunately, there was no place in the inn, so we had a chance to test few others before leaving the town.
What is riad actually and where to find one even on a shoestring budget?
Read our tips here!
Marrakech is lively also outside of the Medina
Outside the Medina, the main attractions are the Koutoubia Mosque and Jemaa el-Fna, the Storytellers’ Square.
Built in the 12th century, the tower of Koutoubia rises to a height of 77 meters and is visible far away in the very flat terrain and shallow cityscape of Marrakesh. Non-Muslims have no access to the mosque itself.
Jemaa el-Fna has a legendary reputation. The huge square has been the ending point of caravans from the South and was also discovered early by musicians, traders, and tricksters far from Africa, for whom it is known.
There’s still a wide variety of music to be heard and you can really see snake enchanters, but the place will inevitably start to have a taste of a tourist trap.
If you want to feel the atmosphere in the square in the evenings and buy food from the alleys on the outskirts of it, you should take care of your wallet.
However, you can take your wallet out for a while and open it on the adjacent streets, as you will find ATMs in them.
Jardin Majorelle
We spent almost two weeks in Marrakech in March 2017, but the city is also suitable for weekend travelers.
In the latter case, you might want to focus on outside the Medina and go for example to Jardin Majorelle, a 9,000 square feet garden founded in 1922 by a painter who developed a blue hue by his own name, Jacques Majorelle.
However, an even more famous resident of the Majorelle blue villa in the middle of the garden was a fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent, whose ashes are even scattered among the plants in the garden.
There is an entrance fee of 70 dirhams, or about 6.50 euros, for the garden.
On a slightly longer trip, you should also explore new neighborhoods such as Gueliz and Hivernage.
Gueliz
Gueliz also has shops and restaurants, of which the most famous is the classic Grand Café de la Poste.
Its Moroccan-style terrace is protected by a dense fence, so you can enjoy a drink or even a local Pinot Gris.
Moroccan wines are generally worth a try. The country has begun to focus on quality instead of producing bulk wines in recent years.
From 6-8 pm drinks can be enjoyed with free tapas from the standing table inside, and dinner in the elegant Art Deco-inspired hall is the most recommended, both in terms of quality and price.
We had some duck here.
Hivernage
Hivernage is home to some of the most famous luxury hotels and has many clubs, nightclubs, and restaurants.
Some are connected to the hotels, but there are other places too. Often hidden from view on the roof terraces.
Most of the clients in the independent clubs seemed to be local.
Otherwise, both neighborhoods are pretty boring and walking in them is a little dull when there’s actually nothing special to see. Hivernage, however, is a fairly green area.
A taxi is a good and inexpensive alternative to wandering the long and dusty streets outside the Medina, but the price should be negotiated in advance if (and often when) there is no meter.
Negotiation often means that the first price offered by a taxi driver is cheeky and you bargain it more moderate.
Sometimes, of course, even the first offer makes perfect sense.
How to get to Marrakech
Back in times, Marrakech Medina was only reachable by camel caravan.
A the foot of the Atlas Mountains, which can be seen from the city’s rooftop terraces, you can still get a camel ride.
Ask from your riad!
Today the city is most often reached from the rest of the world by plane. Many international air carriers fly to Marrakech, from Europe for instance KLM, Lufthansa, and Air France.
We came to town taking a flight from Auckland, New Zealand via Doha and Casablanca.
We left Marrakesh by train to Melilla, Spain.
This time we travelled a total of two months in the old Arab, Berber, and Moorish lands around Morocco and Spain.
Paluuviite: Marrakesh on eksotiikkaa, tuhatvuotista kulttuuria ja nykyaikaa - Please Be Seated for Takeoff