How to spend 3-5 days in Marrakech, Morocco
Jemaa el-Fnaa ("Mosque of Ruins"), Marrakech
Marrakech is the fourth largest city in the Kingdom of Morocco and a capital of the Marrakesh-Safi region. It is the most visited and well known city in Morocco. It is popular for the Souks (largest and oldest outdoor market place), old mosques that show Moroccan architecture at it’s best, museums like YSL museum and restaurants with traditional food. Today Marrakesh is UNESCO World Heritage-listed and must go city for easy visa-free entry.
How to get to Marrakech: There are direct flight from most Europe airports via Brussels Airlines (Star Alliance), Royal Air Maroc , Ryanair and TUI Fly. From USA there are direct flights to Casablanca but no direct flights to Marrakech. If you decide to fly to Casablanca of course you can rent a car but there are other options such as high speed The Al Atlas train, which runs from Casablanca to Marrakech is about 2h 40 min ride for 26$ (and also from Casablanca to Fès/Fez, same price 3h 55 min ride).
Language: Arabic, Berber and French (but English is well understood)
Visa: Visas are not required for visits lasting less than 90 days
When to go: Best time to go is spring and autumn, summers are super hot (highest 99° / lowest 70° F) and winters are cold ( highest 68° / lowest 45° F)
Things to do in Marrakech
Spend all day in Medina and The Souks
Stop for lunch at La Mamounia hotel, famous for Inventing Anna tv show. It’s very possible to see celebrities there and even if you won’t the pictures from this hotel will be worth it.
Jardin Majorelle, museum of YSL and his residence during his life. I didn’t know much about life of Yves Saint Laurent but after visit to his residence i google searched him and found two Netflix movies, highly recommend!
Tours to the desert ! How about Atlas Mountains Hot Air Balloon Ride from Marrakech with Berber Breakfast and Desert Camel Experience or 3 Days Desert Tour From Marrakech To Merzouga Dunes & Camel Trek? Those two are the most popular ones and sell fast in advance.
Medina and le souks
Marrakech Medina (square) is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was founded in the 11th century. It is the most visited and photographed place in Marrakech.
Be advised: tourists stand out from the crowd and get a lot of attention from beggars, thieves and aggressive sellers. Also, you will encounter A LOT of “pretend to be” guides who tell tourists that this or that pathway is sacred/no go way for tourists and leading to Mosque or something or just closed. They are very intimidating to convince you to go with them along the other path that is passable. I know it sounds weird but The Souks are actually a labyrinth of narrow alleys and it is easy to get lost. But with the help of Google maps it is a piece of cake to navigate your way through but i’m sure that in the past those “guides” made a living scamming tourists like that. The best advice how to deal with those people is to not react and not respond to them, just walk your way without interaction. We went to the souks for a day and were bombarded by such people and encountered probably 10-15 of them… Also same thing actually happened when we first arrived to Marrakech by car and we rented Bab Ouch riad in Medina, the “guides” were knocking on our car windows yelling that we can not drive that way (towards our apartment) and were waving us to follow them around. Medina is very packed with people any time of the day and we were actually scared what to do and called our host who came out and told those people off.
Marrakech Medina consists of many souks (markets) and each of them specialize in one type of goods. The most popular ones are:
Souk el Attarine: the most photogenic place selling towers of spices, metallic goods and popular Moroccan lanterns.
Souk des Teinturiers: "Dyer's Souk" presents freshly dyed wool and fabric festoon the stalls in shades of fuchsia, cobalt, and saffron. The dyers showed us how dyes changed colors when mixed with water. We were also introduced to the vegetable dyes made from natural products like flowers and saffron. Very colorful place and great for pictures.
Mosquée Koutoubia, Medina, Marrakech
La Mamounia hotel
La Mamonia, Marrakech
La Mamounia hotel is a famous place not only for a stay but as a film site for Inventing Anna tv show, Sex in the City episode, Friends in Low Places and Our Kind of Traitor. It is a favorite place to stay amoung celebrities (of course) and politicians (Winston Churchill favorite hotel), as well as designers (YSL stayed here before he bough a house in Marrakech). I don’t recommend staying here unless of course you can afford it, but you can afford to visit and stay for a lunch or a couple of drinks (that’s what I did). I would put it in the list of must visit places during the stay in Marrakech because it definitely worth it!
Jardin Majorelle, YSL museum
The Majorelle Garden was created by the French Orientalist artist Jacques Majorelle in 1923, and features a Cubist villa designed by the French architect, Paul Sinoir in the 1930s. This property was purchased in 1980 by the fashion designers, Yves Saint-Laurent and Pierre Bergé who worked to restore it. Today, the garden and villa complex is open to the public. The villa houses the Berber Museum and in 2017 the Yves Saint Laurent Museum opened nearby. I higly recommend to visit this garden and museum for the best colorful pictures and amazing memories!
Where to stay
2 options: in the city or outside the city.
In the city stay
Pros: Close proximity to the souks, museums, restaurants, mosques and all and everything that this city has to offer! You won’t need a car to get to all those famous touristic sites everything is a walking distance.
Cons: The first one is the price as you can guess. The closer to the center of Marrakech the more expensive it gets but not always better quality and more space options. As in any other popular city living in the heart of it rarely gets one a good square footage place unless money is not an issue. Not the best option for a family with kids or a group.
Where we stayed in the city (2 days)
Our Airbnb Riad Bab Ouch in the heart of Marrakech
The best accommodations to look in the city are hotel and Airbnb’s. What you will get is a room and will share a common space which includes dining, hall and rooftops. We stayed in amazing Airbnb Riad Bab Ouch which is located in the heart of The Souks and was empty at the time of our stay and we had the whole place to ourselves. A riad is a type of traditional Moroccan interior garden or courtyard associated with house and palace architecture. What is means is that you will likely see no roof coverage and in the center of the house there will be a garden with a decorative small pool in the middle of it. The house usually is internally decorated which means there is no outside windows or outside decorations but you will be amazed when you walk inside to see all the beauty basically facing within including decorative windows from the bedrooms. The Riad Bab Ouch where we stayed at has 5 bedrooms for rent, 3 floors where first floor is the main area with decorative pool, dining room for winder and couches, second floor are for the bedrooms and the third floor is rooftop with heated pool and breakfast/dinner area during hot seasons (we had an amazing traditional Moroccan breakfast there which is not included in stay price but was like 7$ per person and were going out for dinner). It is located 5 minutes away from Spice Square, 10 minutes from the famous Jemaa El Fna Square and Mosquée Koutoubia. We paid roughly 200$ per night for our room with taxes but price varies during the seasons so expect fluctuations.
Outside the city stay
Pros: The biggest plus is a space. For the amount of money you will pay for a room in riad in the city you can get a house with several bedrooms and a pool in suburbs of Marrakech approximately 30 minutes away drive. Traditionally all the wealthy people in Marrakech lived in their mansions outside of the city and only low and middle class in the city. And tourists of course who are visiting Morocco, I think you got my vibe. Renting a house outside of Marrakech is a perfect option for a family with kids or a group of people travelling together.
Cons: You will need a car to get to your house. Also you will need to travel to a supermarket nearby to stock up on food (which i don’t consider a big con but just a something that needs to be done) or don’t and request a breakfast, lunch and dinner to be made by a house maid (yeah those houses for rent include maids that also shop and cook for you).
Where we stayed in suburbs (3 days)
We rented an amazing house via Airbnb link is here and i’ll post a short video from the pool area below. The house/villa is brand new and modern, has 3 bedrooms, 1 heated pool, indoor and outdoor jacuzzi and hammam. Agency that rented out this house also provides airport transfer, car rental and tours for extra cost. House has a maid that comes to clean/do laundry if you need it (or do it yourself the washing machines are there) in the morning and also offers cooking services and can shop for groceries. We spent $356 per night but the prices vary during the different seasons and are less during the winter and low touristic season or pandemic and high during the peaks. A little note here, the house has absolutely everything but.. you will never guess what it didn’t have and we could’t find in the supermarkets like at all.. a corkscrew! Don’t take me wrong, supermarkers were stocked with beer and wine but none of them had a corkscrew that made us drive all over and at the end we didn’t find it and were opening our wine bottles with knives.
Overall we had amazing time at this house and it’s located only 30 minutes drive from Marrakech! I highly recommend it especially for families with kids and groups travelling together.
Our Airbnb house in suburbs of Marrakech
I wish you a safe and happy stay in Marrakech! Stay tuned for more travel articles! Muah!
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