Need your senses to be dazzled, your snake charmed, hands tattooed, lunch pulled out of a pit in the floor or second-hand false teeth? Then we’ve got it covered!
The Marrakech souks are on the edge of the city’s main square – Djemaa el-Fna – inside the medina, or old town.
Looking across Djemaa el-Fna into the medina beyond
Here you will find any amount of entertainment – some of it even intentional – such as the intimidating snake charmers who guard their pitches ferociously, demanding money with menaces from anyone who dares to take photos from afar,
The snake charmer leaves one customer in no doubt about the price of a holiday snap
the drummers and dancers,
How can you resist those smiles!
Drumming is an essential part of the day in Djemaa el-Fna
henna tattooists and amateur boxers.
Henna tattooists waiting for a client
Day and night it is all about the hustle and inside the medina it isn’t much different.
Morning time at Djemaa el-Fna and the square is barely awake – a shadow of its night life
Nightime lights up Djemaa el-Fna
The medina is a rabbit warren of mutli-coloured stalls, assaulting your senses with colour, noise, taste and smell. Only the legions of satellite dishes perched atop ancient rooftops give away the modern world.
Handicrafts, food, spices, clothes, kitchenware, jewellery and shoes are everywhere – it is part local market, part tourist draw, with daily essentials and needless trinkets, beautiful artisan work and total tat in equal measure.
The shoeless salesman
Looking down the medina side street
Light bounces off lights
Herbs and spices, colour and scent combined
For once in Morocco – the price up front and obvious!
Any colour and any match
We strolled through for hours, just looking and tasting – especially tasting the mechoui – slow roast lamb which is lowered into pits in the floor of the tiny serving kiosks at the edge of the medina.
Mechoui Alley meat ready to go
Mechoui ready for eating in the Marrakech medina – delicious
Mechoui pit in the middle of the kiosk – the lambs are slow baked in the hole heated by the hammam baths
The clay pits steam day and night.
Mechoui is cooked in steaming pits heated from the fires of the neighbouring hammam (public baths)
Whole lambs are raised from beneath the floor at lunchtime, then chunks are simply served in paper with fresh bread and cumin.
Mechoui lamb emerges from the steam pit
Mechoui piping hot is sold by weight in half kilo chunks
Mechoui (slow cooked lamb) mmmmh!
Deliciously tender and a perfect early lunch to set you up to feast on the excesses of medina life!
Thankfully the lamb was lovely and tender, so we didn’t need to avail ourselves of the second-hand teeth and dentures stall. We weren’t sure if the forceps were for pulling new stock or fitting the old ones!
Dentures for sale, or just single teeth if you prefer – forceps at the ready for fitting or exchange!
In many ways life has barely changed in the square and medina. The Photography Museum exhibits from the early 20th century look strikingly similar to our ExtraordinaryPlaces exhibits from a century later.
A timeless place – this photo was taken in March 2014
And this photo was taken nearly a hundred years before
The dress maybe more traditional, but the similarities are vivid in this image from the Photography Museum
The dress may be modern, but the street is unchanged
There is so much more to see, so sit back and enjoy the show!
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