Square, Plaza sights in Morocco
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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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Place Mohammed V
Place Mohammed V is the grand centrepiece of the French regeneration scheme. The vast square is surrounded by an impressive array of august administrative buildings, mostly designed by Henri Prost and Robert Marrast. The ancienne préfecture (old police headquarters), dating from 1930, dominates the south side of the square and is topped by a modernist clock tower.
The nearby Palais de Justice (law courts) was built in 1925. The huge main door and entrance was inspired by the Persian iwan, a vaulted hall that usually opens into the central court of the medersa (theological college) of a mosque. Stroll across the grand square and admire the 1918 main post office, a…
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Place el-Hedim
The heart of Meknès medina is Place el-Hedim , the large square facing Bab el-Mansour. Built by Moulay Ismail and originally used for royal announcements and public executions, it's a good place to sit and watch the world go by - kids playing football, hawkers selling miracle cures, and promenading families. The western side of the square is edged by an excellent covered produce market and catches the spill-over from the souqs to the north.
To the south, the impressive monumental gateway of Bab el-Mansour leads into Moulay Ismail's imperial city. The narrow streets of the old mellah are in the west of the medina.
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Moulay Hassan Square
Created towards the end of 19th century by order of the Alawite sultan Moulay al-Hassan I, this impressive square is surrounded by high pisé walls. The northern gate of the royal palace, known as Bab Makhzen, is here, as is the monumental Bab Sbaâ (the Lion Gate, aka Bab Dkaken), which features three solid arches flanked by two towers. Walk through Bab Sbaâ to see Bab al-Makina, the mechouar (assembly place) that is the main venue for the Fes Festival of World Sacred Music.
Fronting the mechouar is Dar Makina, a muscular European-influenced building dating from 1886. Designed by Italian architects and engineers, it was built to house the imperial arsenal. Behind the …
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Djemaa el-Fna
Think of it as live-action channel-surfing: everywhere you look in the Djemaa el-Fna, Marrakesh’s main square and open-air theatre, you’ll discover drama already in progress. Snake-charmers frantically blast oboes to calm cobras hissing at careening Vespas; water-sellers in fringed hats clang brass cups together, hoping to drive people to drink. On the upper balcony of a café, star-crossed young lovers furtively plot their next meeting, while downstairs, not-so-incognito Hollywood celebrities slurp fresh-squeezed orange juice in sunglasses and studio-logo baseball caps. But Gnaoua musicians inevitably steal the show, working groovy rhythms that get fez tassels spinning…
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Medina
Chefchaouen's medina is one of the loveliest in Morocco. Small and uncrowded, it's easy to explore, with enough winding paths to keep you diverted, but compact enough that you'll never quite get lost. Most of the buildings are painted a blinding blue-white, giving the whole place a clean, fresh look, while the terracotta pantiles on many buildings added an Andalucian flavour.
Centred on Plaza Uta el-Hammam, the medina occupies the eastern half of the town centre, with its main entrance on its western side at Bab el-Ain. The majority of hotels and restaurants are found here.
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Plaza Uta el-Hammam
The heart of Chefchaouen's medina is the shady, cobbled Plaza Uta el-Hammam, dominated by the red-hued walls of the kasbah and the striking Grande Mosquée. The square is lined with cafés, which are blissfully relaxing places from which to watch the world go by, or for recuperating after a hard day's trekking (or shopping). Just off the northeast corner of the square is the Funduq Chfichu, an ancient accommodation and stabling block, long used by pilgrims and travellers and still full on market days.
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Petit Socco
Gone are the days when William Burroughs could cheerfully write of the endless stream of louche offers from young boys and men around the Petit Socco. Nowadays, the busy little square in the medina is a great place to linger over a mint tea, watch the world go by and contemplate its colourful past. And sleaze remains close to the surface: you'll have plenty of offers of 'something special, my friend' and several of the cheap pensions overlooking the square still double as brothels.
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Grand Socco
The gateway to the medina is the Grand Socco, once as full of life as Place Djemaa el-Fna in Marrakesh. Its official name, Place du 9 Avril 1947, refers to the date that Mohammed V first publicly allied himself to the cause of Moroccan independence. The square was being rebuilt and gentrified during research, so it's hard to know if its soul will survive. The best we may hope for is that the terrible traffic surrounding the square is tamed.
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Demnati Fountain & Dar Dmana
This street opens out into a square with an ancient mulberry tree. There's an exceptionally tall traditional house, Dar Dmana, with a massive studded door, and the Demnati fountain. Wait a while, and you might see magnificent stallions being washed, their manes and tails stained red with henna. Also here is an antique shop worth a browse, Brocante Bab Touta .
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Sagha Square
This square contains the 18th century Sagha Funduq with magnificent mashrabiya panels. The scales in the courtyard were for weighing fleeces; cotton and wool are still sold here. Near the entrance is a fountain with a tiled koubba (dome-shaped roof). There's also the fascinating Café Ba Bouchta opposite the funduq.
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Baghdadi Square
The local tourism authorities like to spruik this square as being the local equivalent of Marrakesh's Djemaa el-Fna. This is wishful thinking on their part, but the square is worthy of an early evening wander during festival periods, when it's colonised by street entertainers and hawkers selling traditional remedies.
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Batha
It's real name is Pl de l'Independence but it's generally called 'Batha' and is one of the main entrances to the medina, with parking and taxis. On the square are Café Firdaous and La Maison Bleue , as well as Dar Mekaour, where Morocco's Independence Manifesto was signed in 1944.
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Place de France
The area around Place de France and Blvd Pasteur still hints at something of the glamour of the 1930s. It's a popular place for an early evening promenade, or a few hours sipping mint tea in one of the many pavement cafés. Don't forget to look up at the Riviera architecture.
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Aljibes de las Peñuelas
Inside the Melilla la Vieja is an enclosed square, in the north wall of which is a pair of 15th-century water cisterns, Aljibes de las Peñuelas. The price of entry also allows access to Las Cuevas del Conventico.
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