"Marrakech - Incredible but ..." a Marrakesh Travel Page by sue_stone

Marrakech is a crazy city. Noisy, dusty, busy and smelly, it is an exhausting place to visit! I loved it. Well, most of it.

I spent 4 nights there with my sister Alison. She suggested that we stay somewhere a little up-market, and that turned out to be an excellent idea - our stylish Riad (Moroccan style boutique hotel) was a quiet haven from the outside world, a place to escape when we needed a break from the souqs (markets) and the over-friendly locals.

We spent our days haggling in the souqs, visiting tombs and exploring the narrow streets, discovering more and more intriguing treasures along the way. I drank as much of the country’s favourite drink – Mint Tea – as I could. We loved eating like the locals - who needs cutlery when you have a lump of bread and your hands to use instead!

Highlights included hanging out in the main square - Djemaa el-Fna – the heart of the city. By day it is filled with fresh orange juice vendors and snake charmers. By night it becomes an open-air food market, filled with smoke, music and beggars. I also enjoyed exploring the souqs, laughing at Alison’s haggling attempts (sorry Ali!) and amazing over some of the bizarre items for sale. We also indulged in a fabulous massage at a posh day spa.

Lowlights included the pressure to pay anyone that may have been in one of your photos taken in Djemaa el-Fna (leading to me having an argument with a snake charmer….perhaps not the best idea when only one of us was holding a cobra!), and the constant un-wanted gaze of the local men, and their calls of 'gazelle, gazelle' in our direction. Oh, and our visit to the putrid smelling tanneries wasn't much fun either.

If we had had a little more time I would have liked to get out of Marrakech for a day or two and visit the Atlas Mountains (whose snow-capped peaks we could see in the distance), and perhaps one of the nearby towns. Oh well, looks like I will have an excuse to return to Morocco one day, and perhaps drag Alex along too.