Marrakesh

22-Oct-23

We're spending the next week on a guided driving tour around Morocco from Marrakesh to Fez to Rabat to Casablanca. My cousin Kate joined us from Northern VA & two ladies from Perth, Australia rounded out our group. It was nice to have a small tour group & we lucked out with both the Aussie's & our guides. Both our driver & tour guide were Berber (the original inhabitants of Morocco before Arabs settled here & turned it into Morocco) & they couldn't have been friendlier. Very knowledgeable & experienced - if anyone is looking for a recommendation for a tour company in Morocco, let me know! 😉

We spent our first day exploring Marrakesh, often referred to as the Red City for the red-colored clay used to build defensive walls around the old city (or medina) in the 12th century. 

Our first of many souks (large covered street markets), Marrakesh's maze of stalls selling traditional and modern goods is the largest on Morocco. We only saw a small fraction of it but definitely would have gotten lost without a local waking us through it.

We visited Menara Gardens, built in 1157 as a reservoir for surrounding olive orchards.

The Koutoubia Mosque was built in 1147. Little remains of the original version (now just exposed columns) but a second version was built in 1158, including the 77 meter minaret that is the tallest structure in the city.

The Bahia Palace was built in 1849 by a grand vizier as a gift for his wife (we joked that Nick should take notes 😉).

Family photo 😁

We were told that many homes have two doors.  Friends & family would knock on the smaller, inner door which can be quickly opened. Unlike the larger, surrounding door that strangers knock on to let the women inside know to cover up & that has more/stronger locks on it. 

Cats are EVERYWHERE in Morocco! They live outdoors but people will put out food to feed them, so they become loyal to certain doorsteps. Locals like having them around to take care rodents & insects. The only bad part is there's really no vet care for them, so we saw quite a few sickly kittens & one-eyed adults 😕

The painted/carved wood ceilings were GORGEOUS

Our tour-mates, Emily & Jude, demonstrating what we all look like taking photos 😄

We lunched at a restaurant overlooking Jemaa el-Fna market square. One of the largest & most famous public squares in Africa, it seemed pretty tame when we were there, despite the plethora of snake chargers & monkey 'trainers'. 😬

Majorelle Garden, built in the 1920s, was once home to a French landscape painter of the same name. He loved the dark cobalt blue used in Moroccan tiles & on Berber houses so much, he used the color throughout his property & the shade is now called Majorelle Blue. 

Fashionable Cat

Yves Saint-Laurent bought the Majorelle property in the 1980s after it had fallen into disrepair. It's now become a museum of Berber art and where YSL's ashes were scattered in 2008. Knowing as little as I do about fashion, I knew nothing of YSL's connection to Morocco. The nearby YSL Museum had many of his 1980s-era shepherd & iconic dresses on display.

To finish our first night in Marrakesh, Kate & I went to a hammam (traditional public bath) where were were stripped & thoroughly scrubbed down (the amount of dead skin that sloughed of was a bit disturbing 🫣) while Nick wandered around the soul some more. 

Before & after photos (courtesy of Kate)

We look like brand new, shiny people!

We ate dinner at a beautiful terraced restaurant that offered a buffet of Morocco foods that were DELICIOUS and a much welcome change to the repetitive salted ham, hard cheese, & bread in Andalucía. You never know how much you miss vegetables until you don't have them for a month 🙃

The restaurant cat joined me for dinner