August / September - Marrakech
At the end of August we flew to Marrakech for four nights and stayed at a fabulous hotel, La Villa des Orangers, which is a Riad style hotel. This means it was originally a home built with a central treed courtyard and our hotel had originally been a grand home of a judge who had a courtyard area for his family and a much larger one for his guests. The sitting rooms were all around the courtyards at the lower level and accommodation upstairs, with a pool in one of the courtyards and one on the roof. The pools were most necessary with the daily afternoon temperature about 40C.
We went to Morocco because we had to leave the Schengen area (most of Europe) - as non-EU people we can only stay a maximum of 90 consecutive days in the Schengen area.
Marrakech is a fascinating city, mostly because it is such a culturally different experience for us. We enjoyed the Majorelle Gardens with a fabulous Berber Museum in the grounds, bought by Yves St Lauren and his partner and left in trust when Yves died. We hired a guide for the day we spent in the medina and it was good to have him take us through the maze of alleys with hundreds of souks selling their wares as well as the areas where people in very small stalls were making everything by hand and we also visited some of the museums. I love the Moroccan leather slippers but nothing else tempted me. I should have bought lots of Moroccan oil as it was very cheap and is comparatively expensive elsewhere. We were disappointed that our guide took us to places with a 'hard sell' and that turned us off buying anything. We also walked by ourselves around the newer area of the city, which was just OK, and went to the centre where artisans are being trained to make the traditional crafts by hand. It's interesting that they still continue to do this rather than change to bulk manufacturing of goods.
Our hotel was such a comfortable place to be, with an excellent chef providing both Moroccan and French faire in the dining area in the garden by the pool, so we ate there on our first two nights. On our third night our concierge suggested we go to the French restaurant at the Hotel Mansour, which the current king arranged to be built by the finest local crafts people, doing everything by hand. It is an extraordinary place, set in a huge walled garden and every guest has their own Riad. Every area of the hotel was pure luxury with extraordinary decor. Our dinner was exceptional, not only because of the food but also because of the sumptuous surrounds and outstanding service.
We enjoyed Marrakech and would like to return to Morocco at some time, perhaps to the Atlas Mountains.