Spring Colours in the Kingdom of the West (part 5)

Morocco is red - Besides the red hues of the sunset light on the dunes of the Sahara Desert and the mountains of the Atlas, you will find the red colour in Morocco’s own "Red City". Marrakesh, founded around an oasis in 1071, owes this nickname to its signature pink mudbrick architecture, set against the snow-capped High Atlas Mountains. It is also an "imperial city" as it was the capital of three different dynasties - the Berber dynasties of the Almoravids and the Almohads from its creation until the mid-13th century, and the Saadis who built their spectacular tombs there, even though they shared their capital between Marrakesh and Fez at different times in the 16th and 17th century. Realising the strategic location of the city on the caravans route, they had also made it a lucrative trade center for Christians and Jews with a protected mellah (Jewish quarter) in 1558. When the Alawi sultan Moulay Ismail preferred Meknes to Marrakesh in the 17th century, the city lost its status of capital, but then in the 1960s and ‘70s hippies, artists and internationally famous bands such as The Rolling Stones, The Beatles and Led Zeppelin discovered its undeniable charm and put it back on the radar!

The medina of Marrakesh is surrounded by almost 10 km of unbroken city walls. While you might want to take a taxi or even one of the horse-drawn carriages (calèches) to get around outside its ramparts, you should use your legs to discover the narrow alleys inside them. 

You will need to pay attention to and dodge scooters, donkeys and mule-carts carrying produce along the lanes. Some drivers might shout "Balak! Balak!" (translating into "Be careful!" or "Watch out!" from Arabic) - a useful word you should learn before venturing into any medina in Morocco, but others might not utter a single sound… You might find the whole experience quite disorienting and genuinely start fearing for your dear life, but I promise that it is worth it.

The medina of Marrakesh has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1985. It is a hectic maze of former funduqs housing quaint Ali Baba’s Cave-like artisan workshops, monumental babs, elegant fountains, and dozens of vibrant souqs dedicated to different crafts and goods, such as fabrics, jewels, leather goods, spices, perfumes, henna (the dye made from the dried, powdered leaves of the henna tree, and producing reddish stains used in body art at the occasion of various celebrations such as weddings), and so on.

There are thousands of artisans still working and earning a living out of it in the medina - carpenters, tanners, basket makers, blacksmiths, you name it. Watching these masters work their crafts in their workshops or directly in the street was mesmerising and definitely one of the most interesting cultural experiences we had in Morocco! 

The medina is also home to private palaces, riad mansions and mudbrick houses, the tallest ones towering from both sides of the narrow derbs (alleys) in the mellah, from where most of the Jewish families had moved away since the 1960s.

It is also home to many cute cats, usually hanging out in a napping position and sometimes at the most unusual places!

Another reason you should vanquish any fear for your life and venture in the medina is that most monuments you should visit are inside the ramparts. In the heart of it is located one of the weirdest places in the city - the packed Djemaa El-Fna, Marrakesh’s main square and Unesco-acclaimed halqa (street theatre), which is better seen in the evening. It is a circus and a total madness with snake charmers, astrologers, dentists with jars of pulled teeth, acrobats, henna artists, storytellers, magicians, dancers, musicians, fortune tellers, fire eaters, food stalls, and people selling anything and everything! If you are a hecticness and crowds fan, the place is for you (we preferred the slightly quieter version in the morning…)!

Close to the Djemaa El-Fna square towers the iconic symbol of Marrakesh - the 77m-tall minaret of the Koutoubia Mosque, which is the tallest structure in the city (although not the tallest minaret in the country, the prize for which goes to the Hassan II Mosque's 210m-tall minaret). This easily recognisable Moroccan version of the Eiffel Tower can be seen from various parts of Marrakesh. 

The Koutoubia Mosque (translating into the "Booksellers' Mosque" as its eastern side faces the street where book shops used to be located) was built by the Almohads in the 12th century, after they conquered the city from the Almoravids. Its architecture features elegant horseshoe arches and a minaret boasting different decorations on each of its façades. It is the largest mosque in Marrakesh and can host up to 25,000 worshippers. Unfortunately, you cannot visit it unless you are a Muslim, but the exterior is already spectacular enough!

Even though non-Muslims cannot get inside the mosques in Morocco, they are able to visit most of the madrasas. These Islamic schools, where students studied the Quran, Islamic jurisprudence and other religious subjects, are architectural gems worth exploring. 

They often feature stunning courtyards, adorned with fountains and intricate tilework. 

In the same way you cannot leave Morocco without visiting at least one kasbah, you should try to discover at least one madrasa, but choose wisely! The Ben Youssef Madrasa, founded in the 14th century, was once the largest in North Africa and remains among the most splendid. 

Wood-carved balconies, doors, windows and ceilings, colourful zelliges, and intricate stucco archways are just a few of the wonders that await for you inside this maze of preserved student dormitory cells, arranged around the central courtyard and the prayer hall.

Another not to be missed landmark in the medina is the Bahia Palace (translating into the "Beautiful Palace" from Arabic). 

Its construction was started in the 1860s by Si Musa, who served as Grand Vizier under the Alawi sultan Muhammad ibn Abd al-Rahman. 

The palace comprises around 150 rooms, organized around multiple internal courtyards and riad gardens. 

Even though only a portion of the complex is open to the public and there were some works when we visited, the zellige tilework, the sculpted stucco, the stained glass and the painted cedarwood ceilings were spectacular!

Finally, you cannot leave the medina without enjoying a meal or a drink at one of the several rooftop restaurants and bars of the city! The views of Marrakesh from above are even more spectacular! The storks nesting around in springtime will be the icing on the cake!

If you want to see another landmark of Marrakesh - the famous Majorelle Garden, you need to venture outside the medina as well. 

The one-hectare (two-acre) botanical garden was created by the French Orientalist painter Jacques Majorelle (the same who had painted the Ounila Valley) over almost forty years, starting in 1923. He resided there with his wife until their divorce in the 1950s. 

The property was purchased and restored in the 1980s by the fashion designer Yves Saint-Laurent and his partner Pierre Bergé, and is today open to the public. 

The special shade of bold cobalt blue, inspired by the coloured tiles and Berber burnouses (long hooded, sleeveless cloaks) Majorelle had seen around Morocco, was used extensively in the garden, villa and other buildings, and is named after him - bleu Majorelle (or Majorelle blue). 

Prior to his death, the artist even patented the colour! 

Today, the former painting studio of Jacques Majorelle houses the Pierre Bergé Museum of Berber Art, featuring some stunning objects of the Amazigh (Berber) culture, including baskets, chests, jars, jeweleries and traditional clothes from various regions in Morocco. In the complex you will also find the Yves Saint Laurent Museum that we skipped after reading some comments about it. You need a ticket for each museum, which is on top of the gardens’ entrance fees, and might have to wait in a separate and maybe quite long line in addition to the one for entering the complex… 

The gardens are undeniably beautiful with many ponds and fountains and a huge variety of flowers and trees, from cacti, water lilies and bougainvilleas to bamboo and palm trees.

What makes them so special are the bright colours and the way they have been highlighted using contrasts and natural light. 

However, contrary to some comments we had read online, I would not say that they are the most beautiful gardens I have ever seen. Also, if you want to visit them, bear in mind that they are insanely crowded, despite the fact that you need to secure an entrance ticket for a specific time slot…

Slightly disappointed by the Majorelle Garden, we decided to visit another less known place - the Menara Gardens. This green heaven away from the hectic medina features a huge pool, which was dug in the 12th century by the Almohads for watering the surrounding orchards and olive trees, and is fed by the phreatic zone. 

On the edge of it stands a small 19th-century building, which served as an intimate pleasure pavilion to the sultans. The menzeh structure is the reverse of a riad - instead of an interior patio, there is a covered room and a large balcony facing the pool on the upper floor. 

The reflections of the pavilion in the pool and the snow-capped High Atlas peaks in the background are picture-perfect! There were almost no visitors at all while we enjoyed a cup of coffee next to the pool - it was incredibly serene!

After three days there, we were a little bit tired of the hecticness and craziness of Marrakesh, and maybe even of Morocco altogether… We were glad we had followed the advice of our new local friends not to stay in the medina, but in one of the neighbourhoods outside the ramparts, not too far away from the city center, where they had also recommended a local hammam - another experience you cannot miss if you visit the country. While there are luxury options such as the La Mamounia hammam which cost an arm and a leg, or very basic communal hammams where you need to bring everything yourself, from the black soap to the washing mit, the Kesh Hammam & Spa in Marrakesh was somewhere in the middle. The experience was interesting and we decided that if one day we live in Morocco, we will definitely enjoy it at least once every two weeks! The hammam is divided in two different parts with two different entrances for men and women. The person washing you will be a woman if you are a woman, and a man if you are a man.

The experience was slightly stressful at first as the lady who was washing me did not speak any English or French and was just showing me what to do. Since the room was full of steam which was getting thicker with every minute, I was really scared that I was not going to be able to see her and follow her instructions after a while! Also, I was lying on a stone bed with an inflatable cushion under my head, but the whole process was so slippery that I was scared that my cushion, and eventually I, were going to slide down any minute (luckily, neither of us did!). However, all these funny moments are what made the whole experience feel authentic, and the lady was so sweet that I soon managed to relax. I had asked for a hammam experience, followed by a massage, and am glad I did it. As relaxing as the hammam experience might feel afterwards, it is definitely quite a lot of scrubbing to start with - I was not sure I was going to have any skin or hair left after the process, even though it did not hurt at all. If I have to compare it to something, it would be my childhood memories of my mom washing me as a toddler. Get ready to remove all your clothes (except your panties) and feel completely helpless, like a baby… The reassuring part is that you are in a private room and the lady who is washing you is the only one who can see you! She will rub black soap and flower bath salts onto your wet body, then scrub it with a coarse fabric washcloth called kessa to remove any dead skin, and finally rinse it, meticulously and several times (you will probably even lose count of them - I certainly did). The lady will then wash your hair with shampoo, apply hair conditioner, rinse, and then comb it, meticulously and several times again… I got scared when I saw all the black pieces falling from my body and decided that I was definitely the dirtiest person this lady had ever washed, until I realised that it was the effect of the black soap… What I can promise is that you will get out of the hammam lighter and as clean as when you were born, or actually even cleaner! The massage after the hammam time will be the icing on the cake and make you float for a little bit longer after this eye- and soul-opening experience!

I have to be honest that the three days we stayed in Marrakesh were probably not enough. We had so many places on our bucket list that we had to make choices, based on what we had already seen elsewhere in Morocco. Still on our bucket list for another trip are the Saadian Tombs (the royal necropolis of the Saadi dynasty), the Bab Agnaou (a triumphal gateway to the royal kasbah), the 16th-century Badi Palace, the 19-century Dar Si Said housing the Museum of Moroccan Arts, the 19th-century Secret Garden, and La Mamounia (a five-star hotel with an impressive list of notable guests, including Charles de Gaulle, Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Nelson Mandela, Paul McCartney, Charlie Chaplin, Omar Sharif, Zinedine Zidane, Yves Saint Laurent, Marlene Dietrich and Gary Cooper…). If you want to visit La Mamounia’s 20-acre garden without breaking the bank, you can have lunch or even only a drink in one of the hotel’s restaurants and bars. 

In addition to its white, blue, green, orange and red cities, Morocco has a yellow one. Because Morocco is also yellow…