The beautiful city of Marrakech in Morocco is fabulous. A town in the country, an oasis at the foot of the Atlas. The impression that the surrounding plains and mountains constantly feed the imperial city as native visitors. Marrakech, one of the most touristic cities in the world, a veritable oasis, in the middle of a vast arid plain almost desert, at the foot of the High Atlas, attracts many tourists.
Spend a few days in Marrakech or even come to live there.
The challenge of getting out of the classic circuits frequented can easily be reached as the city will allow you to follow parallel routes. The city is very lively at all hours of the day and night. It is possible to celebrate in many nightclubs but also to find places of calm and rest. A nice idea is to explore the nearby Atlas mountains within a 90 minute drive.
The old town behind its ramparts offers many places of interest (Medressa, Jema El Fna, Koutoubia etc.). The pleasure of strolling randomly will prevail on a precise circuit. The Café de France offers a drink with a view over the animations of the place (snake charmers, acrobats, street dentists, storytellers, etc.). Many of the riads in the old town will accommodate you in the quiet of their high wall and will be an alternative to hotels that are often (but not always) too impersonal.
Le Gueliz, modern and recent part of Marrakech is home to the Majorelle garden and soon the Yves Saint Laurent museum. The bar of the hotel "La Renaissance" has a magnificent view over the neighborhood and will delight you at the time of the aperitif at the end of the day!
The residential district of the wintering will shelter you in peace and in the sweetness if you have chosen an accommodation in this zone.
Many other quarters, more impersonal, surround the center of Marrakech notably to the North of the city.
Nice gardens of olive trees such as the Menara or the Agdal, but also the Palmeraie are worth a visit, the marrakchis are wandering about in numbers and in family.
Few photos (smartphone) of Marrakech
Good tips, great addresses
- Dar Mimoun a place of dream to land and recharge. The food, quality and reasonably priced is not the most refined of the city but the welcome and service are always friendly.
- The Table du marché Restaurant et traiteur
- Nid'cigogne for a drink or dinner (60, Place des Tombeaux Saadiens) in the Jewish quarter of the mellah
- Go skiing at the Oukaïmeden ski resort
Reading Ideas
"The Magic of Marrakech" a beautiful and large book, texts and photos of Barbara and René Stoeltie, preface by Bernard Henri Levy, allows us to discover some twenty houses and riads of Marrakech. Places full of history (and history) beautifully decorated and renovated. A few short excerpts from the book: "... this aromatic perfume, powerful and stimulating, which rises from the souks, the swirling crowd that hurls itself in the streets ... the prayer of the muezzin which hangs long over the roofs of the city ... "
Some images of the book we recommend you buy or consult
We recommend two books by Tahar Ben Jelloun (writer but also a painter!) "Levant" and "Le Bonheur Conjugal" by Gallimard to better understand Morocco. Other than as a purely hedonistic holidaymaker or even having a naive and idyllic blissful vision of the country.
These two books of the great French novelist do not take place in Marrakech but largely in the Rif in the North of Morocco. Part of Morocco quite different from the rest of the country.
" Le bonheur conjugal ", superbly written, chiseled, depicts the views of a couple who hate each other, against a backdrop of Moroccan culture. Reading is jubilant of impertinence and humor.
" Partir " describes the vitality of Moroccan youth, the tension between a certain fidelity to its culture of origin and the West, just across the Straits of Gibraltar. His obsessive dream of fleeing, going to Spain, Europe close and so far away ...
Psychoanalysis permeates the work of Tahar ben Jelloun who courageously brings to light and in perspective, in his books, the "intercultural tug-of-war", inherited from contemporary history, sometimes hard to live for the youth.
A beautiful text by Tahar Ben Jelloun to be read on the website of the magazine L'Express: "the other Morocco"