Sights in Marrakesh
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Djemaa El-Fna
Grab a front-row or balcony seat at a café alongside the Djemaa, and watch the drama unfold. As the sun travels across the sky, orange-juice vendors make way for healers and henna tattoo artists, who scoot over for snake charmers, astrologers and acrobats. Around dusk, the storytellers begin their epic tales, and cooks cart in the makings of 100 restaurants specializing in barbecued everything, tasty cooked salads and steaming snails.
For the ultimate dinner theatre, look no further than the Gnaoua drummers, male belly dancers and Berber musicians surrounding the Djemaa dining action.
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Jardin Majorelle & Museum of Islamic Art
Owned by the Pierre Bergé-Yves Saint-Laurent Foundation, this exotic sub-tropical garden provides a haven away from the hectic pace outside. The garden was designed by the French painter Jacques Majorelle, who lived here from 1922 to 1962. In among the cooling water features, the cacti, majestic palm trees and cascades of bougainvillaea, is a small museum.
The museum contains one of those Moroccan collections you'd love to scoop up and take home, including Berber and Tuareg jewellery and textiles, carpets, wedding curtains and cobalt blue pottery - all labelled in Arabic and French. Another room is dedicated to Majorelle's work.
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Koutoubia Minaret
When the present mosque and its iconic Moorish minaret were finished by Almohad Sultan Yacoub el-Mansour in the 12th century, 100 booksellers were clustered around its base - hence the name Koutoubia, meaning 'booksellers'. In the recently refurbished gardens outside the mosque, you might still notice a recent excavation that confirmed a longstanding Marrakshi legend.
The pious Almohads were apparently distressed to discover that their lax Almoravid predecessors had built a mosque that wasn't properly aligned with Mecca, and razed the place to build another. Atop the minaret are three golden balls made of copper. The originals were reputedly real gold donated by the…
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Les Palais Rhoul Hammam
A classic Moroccan hammam, with separate chambers for varying levels of heat, zellij (mosaic) and tadelakt (polished plaster) walls, and sunbeams filtering through vaulted ceilings. It's oddly placed alongside a French baroque villa, amid fake Berber tents pitched in a formal garden - but don't let that deter you. The standard hammam treatment includes gommage, rhassoul with orange-flower water and massage with organic essential oils, and it really Rhouls. Treat yourself to cocktails afterwards at Abyssin and you may have to be scraped up and mailed home.
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Musée de Marrakech
Elegantly restored into a museum in 1997 by the Omar Benjelloun Foundation, the Musée de Marrakech presents rotating traditional arts displays including Rabati embroidery, Moroccan Jewish artefacts and High Atlas carpets, plus the usual orientalist artwork in the original hammam. Occasional concerts in the grand courtyard are not to be missed, the courtyard café features tasty omelettes and intriguing contemporary Moroccan art, and the bookshop offers a small but superior selection of art books, maps and postcards.
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Ramparts
In the 12th century, the Almoravids wrapped the Medina snugly in 19km of mud brick 5m tall, so that the city doubled as a fortress. But this didn't keep out the Almohads, who considered their predecessors irredeemably corrupt and razed the city, leaving almost no trace of their 85-year rule except for these ramparts. Today the ramparts are for lovers, not fighters, with couples patrolling the rampart gardens at sunset. Calèches (horse-drawn carriages) are available near the Djemaa el-Fna.
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Bab Agnaou
One of the 20 gates in Marrakesh, this 12th-century 'gate of the Gnaoua' (named for the sub-Saharan slaves who served the sultan) was one of the first stone monuments in Marrakesh and a triumph of Marrakshi artisanship. From afar the bas-relief appears much deeper than it actually is, due to a sophisticated trompe l'oeil effect. The bluish-gold-green colour of its Guéliz stone seems to change like a mood ring according to the time of the day, the heat and, perhaps, the city's disposition.
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Dar Si Said
A monument to Moroccan maâlems (master craftsmen), the Dar Si Said highlights Marrakesh's graceful riad architecture and local craftsmanship - though artisans from Fez must be credited for the spectacular painted woodwork in the domed wedding chamber upstairs. Don't miss the painted musicians' balconies and the vaguely threatening kitchen implements on the second, plus views over the zellij harem courtyard (currently undergoing restoration).
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Ksar Char-Bagh Hammam
A trip to this spectacular subterranean red-marble hammam is almost eerily like rebirth. Re-entry to the world is eased with scented essential oils, liberal application of Anne Semonin products and a mood-lit lounge area. There's also a swimming pool. Treat yourself to a hammam, velvety skin scrub, rhassoul (mud scalp rub) and 90-minute perfumed-oil massage and emerge vowing to be a better person - or at least wear more sunscreen.
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Badi Palace
When 16th-century Sultan Ahmed el-Mansour was paving his palace with gold, turquoise and crystal, his jester wisecracked, 'It'll make a beautiful ruin'. That fool was a prophet: 75 years later the place was looted. Hard to picture the former glories of the now-barren courtyard, and the next-door garden is a royal mess with the king's security equipment - but the stork's-eye view atop the ramparts and periodic concerts here are musts.
reviewed
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Koutoubia Minbar
Not to be confused with an ordinary staircase or a hotel beverage dispensary, this minbar (pulpit) is the Koutoubia's 12th-century prayer pulpit. With intricately carved cedar wood steps and minute gold, silver and ivory marquetry, this minbar is a credit to Cordoban craftsmanship under Moroccan rule and maâlem Aziz - the Metropolitan Museum of Art restoration uncovered his signature under the inlay.
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High-Tech Souq
Wander in the north of the souqs past the bridle-makers and lute-carvers and through a stone archway, and you'll find the most bizarre bazaar of all. This souq is covered with palm fronds and lined with shops that are literally holes in the mud-brick walls, packed floor to ceiling with flat-screen TVs. Donkey carts lug in computers still in their boxes; it's multimedia gone medieval.
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Menara Gardens
Local lore tells of a sultan who seduced guests over dinner, then chucked them in the Menara Gardens' pools to drown. Clear days bring families for picnics in a stately 19th-century pavilion. Stay for sunsets against the Atlas mountain backdrop, but skip the sound-and-light show, a 65-minute flag-waving version of Marrakshi history featuring lasers and awkward interpretive dance.
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Rahba Qedima
Harry and the Hogwarts crowd probably shop here for school supplies. The Rahba Qedima is ringed with apothecaries who sell exotic and mysterious spell supplies to locals and traditional cosmetics to tourists, who eagerly dip a wet finger into clay pots of aker and smear it on their lips as rouge - apparently unaware that this stuff is made of ground-up insects.
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Jardin Harti
Where the action is for sporty types, active kids and amateur botanists. As well as the soccer fields, there's a playground and an outdoor amphitheatre where free shows are held that doubles as an after-school hangout, and recently restored paths through gardens of cacti and rare succulents that will test your ability to discern euphorbia from echinocactus.
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Souqs
The souks (markets) are filled with food stalls selling olives, dates and sweets, and carts loaded with fruit and vegetables. If you get lost ask someone to point you back towards the Djemaa el-Fna (preferably a shopkeeper – kids like to mislead tourists) or head towards the Koutoubia minaret (the tallest in town).
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Agdal Gardens
Moroccan sultans have greeted dignitaries here for eight centuries, among fragrant fruit and olive orchards and reflecting pools stocked with psychic carp that sense you and your bread crusts coming. The gardens still serve ceremonial purposes, so they're only open weekends and when the king isn't in residence.
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Cyberpark
Tiptoe through the tulips to check email at the Cyberpark, an eight-hectare royal garden dating from about 1700 that now offers free wifi. The paths are lined with orange trees, palms and internet kiosks - wait your turn on benches filled with teenagers and nervous online daters.
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Galerie Photo 127
Like any worthwhile Chelsea gallery, this one is up a dim, once-grand staircase and in an industrial-chic chamber with the obligatory exposed brick-and-concrete wall. Shows vary from straightforward travel photography to more interpretive works, mostly by Mediterranean artists.
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Bahia Palace
Imagine what you could build with Morocco’s top artisans at your service for 14 years, and here you have it: the Bahia Palace. Located near Place des Ferblantiers, La Bahia (The Beautiful) boasts floor-to-ceiling decoration begun by Grand Vizier Si Moussa in the 1860s and further embellished in 1894–1900 by slave-turned-vizier Abu ‘Bou’ Ahmed. The painted, gilded, inlaid woodwork ceilings still have the intended effect of subduing crowds, while the carved stucco is cleverly slanted downward to meet the gaze.
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Badi Palace
When 16th-century Sultan Ahmed el-Mansour was paving his palace with gold, turquoise and crystal, his jester wisecracked, 'It'll make a beautiful ruin'. That fool was a prophet: 75 years later the place was looted. Hard to picture the former glories of the now-barren courtyard, and the next-door garden is a royal mess with the king's security equipment - but the stork's-eye view atop the ramparts and periodic concerts here are musts.
reviewed
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Taourirt Kasbah
Unlike other Glaoui kasbahs, Taourirt Kasbah escaped ruin by taking a gig as a Hollywood backdrop in Star Wars and attracting the attention of Unesco, which has carefully restored small sections of the Glaoui inner-sanctum, including unfurnished reception areas and living quarters. You can also wander through the village inside the kasbah walls, and crafty bargainers may be able to cut some good deals in these backstreet shops.
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Saadian Tombs
Anyone who says you can’t take it with you hasn’t seen the Saadian Tombs. Saadian Sultan Ahmed el-Mansour ed-Dahbi spared no expense on his tomb, importing Italian Carrara marble and gilding honeycomb muqarnas (plasterwork) archways with pure gold to make the Chamber of the 12 Pillars a suitably glorious final resting place. This Marrakshi Midas played favourites even in death, keeping alpha-male princes handy in the Chamber of the Three Niches, and relegating to garden plots some 170 chancellors and wives – all overshadowed by his mother’s large mausoleum with intricate woodwork spandrels in the courtyard, exposed to the elements but vigilantly guarded by stray…
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Mellah
The mellah, situated south of Bahia Palace, is the historic home to most of Marrakesh’s Jewish community. Only a few Jewish families remain in these narrow derbs (alleys) – most moved to Casablanca, Israel or France in the 1950s – but you can still spot Star of David symbols proudly emblazoned on old doors, and witness cross-alley gossip in progress through wrought-iron mellah balconies.
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Matisse Art Gallery
On the right along the Passage Ghandouri pedestrian corridor you’ll spot the polished black-marble front of Matisse Art Gallery, where you’ll be greeted by ethereal figures in beeswax and natural pigments by Marrakesh’s most famous artist, Mahi Binebine, and henna paintings evoking Berber baraka (blessings) by Farid Belkahia.
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