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.
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 drummers and dancers,
henna tattooists and amateur boxers.
Day and night it is all about the hustle and inside the medina it isn’t much different.
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.
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.
The clay pits steam day and night.
Whole lambs are raised from beneath the floor at lunchtime, then chunks are simply served in paper with fresh bread and cumin.
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!
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.
There is so much more to see, so sit back and enjoy the show!