I Love To Travel Anywhere, Any Time
[b]6 Days In Marrakech[/b]
by Valentine
Yes, it’s spelt with a 'ch' at the end, it seems. But 'sh' is fine too.
A small country at the Northwest tip of Africa of course - famous perhaps for the city and the film 'Casablanca' with the line 'Play it again, Sam' – except that all true film buffs will know that wasn't actually said in the film – not quite, it was 'Play it, Sam' – I’ll give you the link - (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vThuwa5RZU)
Arriving at the airport, you notice the usual increase in temperature - something like a steady 25C. We were met as arranged and taxied by Mohammed towards our Riad (Riad du Petit Prince) in the very centre of Marrakech. This inner area is known as the ‘Medina’ which is contained by a pink 10 metre high wall all the way around it, some 8 miles in perimeter. A ‘Riad’ is best described as a small guest house within this inner area, and set in amongst the many and small back streets, quite difficult to find your way around as at first, every back street tending to look very much like every other, and you can soon lose your bearings. Being led initially from the taxi to the Riad is your first experience of the narrow cobbled streets, offering every kind of smell and aroma, lined with very small shop stalls displaying anything from fruit & veg to pasta, nuts, herbs, fresh meat, kitchen utensils and small cafes offering barbecued chicken legs coated with turmeric, freshly cooked on their small charcoal fires at the front of their stalls. The streets are small, about 12’ wide perhaps, with a centre ‘drainage’ system running close to the food laid out at the edges on usually just an old matting, maybe fruit boxes, but usually just loose and in small piles. You wend your way through, dragging your suitcases bobbling along behind you, making way for the many moped drivers who are quite used to missing you, just. Arriving at the black crafted wooden front door of the Riad with an inner-set door which you need to stoop through, you pass into something quite a contrast from the quite dirty and almost squalid streets outside, into an inner open air court yard, beautifully clean and fresh with orange trees over the small breakfast tables alongside the small swimming pool. This area is open to the heavens, and frequented by many small birds grateful for the dropped bread crumb or two. You pass through an inner maze of corridors and up small staircases to your room, in our case having the barest of essentials, a double bed, a couple of chairs in the main room adjacent to the shower and washbasin restroom. It was fine. Small, but full of local character, and maybe even ‘romantic’. Not having eaten for some time, Adil (owner and brother of Mohammed) kindly arranged for a barbecued chicken leg and lamb skewer takeaway meal to be brought in with a selection of olives and warmed bread. Alcohol is not technically allowed within the Medina area, but a blind eye is turned and Adil obliges with a nicely chilled bottle of rosé to wash down the essential gulp of chilled beer we had on arrival.
The inner city Medina has a number of attractions which are generally, much like our Riad, tucked away inside high-walled buildings – one minute you’re dodging dysfunctional taxi & moped drivers, the next you’re inside an intriguing palace or the beautiful Yves Saint Laurent gardens. At the outskirts there is a working cooperative tannery which you are given a sprig of mint to carry around with you as of course the smell is ‘not so sweet’. After viewing the tanneries, you are then led into the small shop, ‘invited’ to sit down, given a small glass of ‘Moroccan Whisky’ (mint tea with far too much sugar) and, despite the clue you gave them that you bought an expensive hand-made rug just the year before, they proceed to work up a small sweat, throwing out across the floor at least 20 rugs, each one different and quite beautiful. Perhaps £250 was a good price, but the £8 mat bought from the nearby souk (market) did us just fine.
Marrakech is at the foot of the Atlas mountain range – not so big, but quite beautiful, and I guess even more so when topped with snow in the more wintery months. We arranged a day trip out to see the waterfalls nestled into the mountain side, and were again invited in to a local Berber’s house, the local farming folk who historically tend the sheep, goats and olive groves. Quite lovely to see the flat round bread being cooked over a wood fire, which a few minutes later tasted good with butter and another glass of Moroccan whisky! An alternative to mint is to have it with dried thyme, quite good for unsettled stomachs apparently. The tendency is to take the tea with quite a lot of sugar in it, but they are now realising the link between this and the ever increasing cases of diabetes.
Eating out in Marrakech is enjoyable – each menu is likely to have a choice of reasonably priced grills, couscous, or the must-of-must meals, the lamb tagine. They cook these beautifully. At the centre of the tagine will be a small mutton joint, slowly cooked, melting off the bone, cooked in a sauce of vegetable stock and spices. Around the meat will be a selection of vegetables pointing up from the outer rim to a central higher point. All cooked on top of a charcoal fire which I now realise helps the steam percolate up through and down the inner sides of the cooler tagine lid. Fish is an alternative, perhaps swordfish, but can be quite boney. And you eventually get used to drinking water or freshly squeezed orange juice. I didn’t miss my cold beer once. Honest.
The main central Jemaa El Fna square (translates as ‘assembly of the dead’, perhaps due to the many executions carried out there in times gone by) is next to the main and impressive Koutoubia mosque with its 77 metre high minaret, wide enough to allow a horse to be ridden up to the top, looking out over the small historic and bustling Medina inner city below. During the day, the square has tourist stalls with cobra snakes being charmed by incessant tunes from the pungi reeded wind instrument, the snakes reportedly too docile in the hot sun to strike, but, all the same, snake charmers do tend to sit just far enough away out of striking reach. Small monkeys (complete with nappy-diaper), on a lead next to their owners ready for you to have your souvenir photo taken if you so wish. The square is a central point of attraction and activity surrounded by a range of restaurants, some with upper terraces allowing you some fresh breeze and wider sights across the city. At night, the square transitions into rows and rows of lit up market stalls displaying a tempting array of fresh fruits, nuts, pastas, pulses, dates and dried apricots etc. An inner area is given over to cloth covered Oktoberfest-like wooden tables where you can eat your barbecued chicken leg or eat your bowl of chick-pea soup.
Just away from the square on the northern side of the main square, there are a number of small enclosed cobbled streets leading off into the main area of permanently housed market stalls known as ‘souks’ – whilst this experience is an essential part of Marrakech, you enter this maze very much at your own peril, for if your navigation or haggling skills are less than finely honed, you risk your very sanity. What is probably only 200x200 square yards of market stalls, it can take you some 2 hours to navigate your way back out to heavenly and comforting daylight, and even then you are likely to have in tow some three persistent souk owners who are still trying to offer you their ‘very special price’ for those yellow Aladdin slippers you always dreamed of having back home. ‘No-thank-you’ is not a phrase they readily understand. It takes a few days to fine-tune the haggling skills – and no doubt your poker face develops at the same time. But understand, it isn’t just a matter of fleecing you of your last dirham, it is a matter of honour and form – best captured by the likelihood that having once shaken hands on a price, taken the goods away wrapped, you can return to the exact same souk owner a day later, offer the exact same money again for the same item, and you are forced to go through the very same haggling process. It gets to you eventually.
Marrakech is a haven of inner city Moroccan life. An experience of a lifetime perhaps. Play it again, Sam? Just the once will probably do quite nicely thanks.
by Valentine
Yes, it’s spelt with a 'ch' at the end, it seems. But 'sh' is fine too.
A small country at the Northwest tip of Africa of course - famous perhaps for the city and the film 'Casablanca' with the line 'Play it again, Sam' – except that all true film buffs will know that wasn't actually said in the film – not quite, it was 'Play it, Sam' – I’ll give you the link - (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vThuwa5RZU)
Arriving at the airport, you notice the usual increase in temperature - something like a steady 25C. We were met as arranged and taxied by Mohammed towards our Riad (Riad du Petit Prince) in the very centre of Marrakech. This inner area is known as the ‘Medina’ which is contained by a pink 10 metre high wall all the way around it, some 8 miles in perimeter. A ‘Riad’ is best described as a small guest house within this inner area, and set in amongst the many and small back streets, quite difficult to find your way around as at first, every back street tending to look very much like every other, and you can soon lose your bearings. Being led initially from the taxi to the Riad is your first experience of the narrow cobbled streets, offering every kind of smell and aroma, lined with very small shop stalls displaying anything from fruit & veg to pasta, nuts, herbs, fresh meat, kitchen utensils and small cafes offering barbecued chicken legs coated with turmeric, freshly cooked on their small charcoal fires at the front of their stalls. The streets are small, about 12’ wide perhaps, with a centre ‘drainage’ system running close to the food laid out at the edges on usually just an old matting, maybe fruit boxes, but usually just loose and in small piles. You wend your way through, dragging your suitcases bobbling along behind you, making way for the many moped drivers who are quite used to missing you, just. Arriving at the black crafted wooden front door of the Riad with an inner-set door which you need to stoop through, you pass into something quite a contrast from the quite dirty and almost squalid streets outside, into an inner open air court yard, beautifully clean and fresh with orange trees over the small breakfast tables alongside the small swimming pool. This area is open to the heavens, and frequented by many small birds grateful for the dropped bread crumb or two. You pass through an inner maze of corridors and up small staircases to your room, in our case having the barest of essentials, a double bed, a couple of chairs in the main room adjacent to the shower and washbasin restroom. It was fine. Small, but full of local character, and maybe even ‘romantic’. Not having eaten for some time, Adil (owner and brother of Mohammed) kindly arranged for a barbecued chicken leg and lamb skewer takeaway meal to be brought in with a selection of olives and warmed bread. Alcohol is not technically allowed within the Medina area, but a blind eye is turned and Adil obliges with a nicely chilled bottle of rosé to wash down the essential gulp of chilled beer we had on arrival.
The inner city Medina has a number of attractions which are generally, much like our Riad, tucked away inside high-walled buildings – one minute you’re dodging dysfunctional taxi & moped drivers, the next you’re inside an intriguing palace or the beautiful Yves Saint Laurent gardens. At the outskirts there is a working cooperative tannery which you are given a sprig of mint to carry around with you as of course the smell is ‘not so sweet’. After viewing the tanneries, you are then led into the small shop, ‘invited’ to sit down, given a small glass of ‘Moroccan Whisky’ (mint tea with far too much sugar) and, despite the clue you gave them that you bought an expensive hand-made rug just the year before, they proceed to work up a small sweat, throwing out across the floor at least 20 rugs, each one different and quite beautiful. Perhaps £250 was a good price, but the £8 mat bought from the nearby souk (market) did us just fine.
Marrakech is at the foot of the Atlas mountain range – not so big, but quite beautiful, and I guess even more so when topped with snow in the more wintery months. We arranged a day trip out to see the waterfalls nestled into the mountain side, and were again invited in to a local Berber’s house, the local farming folk who historically tend the sheep, goats and olive groves. Quite lovely to see the flat round bread being cooked over a wood fire, which a few minutes later tasted good with butter and another glass of Moroccan whisky! An alternative to mint is to have it with dried thyme, quite good for unsettled stomachs apparently. The tendency is to take the tea with quite a lot of sugar in it, but they are now realising the link between this and the ever increasing cases of diabetes.
Eating out in Marrakech is enjoyable – each menu is likely to have a choice of reasonably priced grills, couscous, or the must-of-must meals, the lamb tagine. They cook these beautifully. At the centre of the tagine will be a small mutton joint, slowly cooked, melting off the bone, cooked in a sauce of vegetable stock and spices. Around the meat will be a selection of vegetables pointing up from the outer rim to a central higher point. All cooked on top of a charcoal fire which I now realise helps the steam percolate up through and down the inner sides of the cooler tagine lid. Fish is an alternative, perhaps swordfish, but can be quite boney. And you eventually get used to drinking water or freshly squeezed orange juice. I didn’t miss my cold beer once. Honest.
The main central Jemaa El Fna square (translates as ‘assembly of the dead’, perhaps due to the many executions carried out there in times gone by) is next to the main and impressive Koutoubia mosque with its 77 metre high minaret, wide enough to allow a horse to be ridden up to the top, looking out over the small historic and bustling Medina inner city below. During the day, the square has tourist stalls with cobra snakes being charmed by incessant tunes from the pungi reeded wind instrument, the snakes reportedly too docile in the hot sun to strike, but, all the same, snake charmers do tend to sit just far enough away out of striking reach. Small monkeys (complete with nappy-diaper), on a lead next to their owners ready for you to have your souvenir photo taken if you so wish. The square is a central point of attraction and activity surrounded by a range of restaurants, some with upper terraces allowing you some fresh breeze and wider sights across the city. At night, the square transitions into rows and rows of lit up market stalls displaying a tempting array of fresh fruits, nuts, pastas, pulses, dates and dried apricots etc. An inner area is given over to cloth covered Oktoberfest-like wooden tables where you can eat your barbecued chicken leg or eat your bowl of chick-pea soup.
Just away from the square on the northern side of the main square, there are a number of small enclosed cobbled streets leading off into the main area of permanently housed market stalls known as ‘souks’ – whilst this experience is an essential part of Marrakech, you enter this maze very much at your own peril, for if your navigation or haggling skills are less than finely honed, you risk your very sanity. What is probably only 200x200 square yards of market stalls, it can take you some 2 hours to navigate your way back out to heavenly and comforting daylight, and even then you are likely to have in tow some three persistent souk owners who are still trying to offer you their ‘very special price’ for those yellow Aladdin slippers you always dreamed of having back home. ‘No-thank-you’ is not a phrase they readily understand. It takes a few days to fine-tune the haggling skills – and no doubt your poker face develops at the same time. But understand, it isn’t just a matter of fleecing you of your last dirham, it is a matter of honour and form – best captured by the likelihood that having once shaken hands on a price, taken the goods away wrapped, you can return to the exact same souk owner a day later, offer the exact same money again for the same item, and you are forced to go through the very same haggling process. It gets to you eventually.
Marrakech is a haven of inner city Moroccan life. An experience of a lifetime perhaps. Play it again, Sam? Just the once will probably do quite nicely thanks.
