PLANET DANTASTIC: MARRAKESH
(scroll down for Mykonos info!)
WHO FLIES TO MARRAKECH FROM UK?
British Airways
Royal Air Maroc
Atlas Blue (charter company)
Easyjet
ThomsonFly go from Manchester, from £4.73!
BEFORE YOU GO
Arm yourself with a copy of the Hedonist’s Guide to Marrakech which is available to buyonline. See http://www.ahedonistsguideto.com/ or http://www.hg2.com/
WHEN SHOULD I GO?
May, September, October are hot but not unbearable. Prices drop on June 1st as it gets hotter. Weather guide at
http://www.weather.com/activities/travel/businesstraveler/weather/climo-monthly-graph.html?locid=MOXX0004&from=search
WHERE TO STAY: MEDINA
Riad Mehdi – http://www.riadmehdi.net/ – New build but looks old. Beautiful pair of traditionally decorated houses around a central courtyard – with spa treatments & very pretty pool area. In the Medina (the old City) but at the edge, so you can take a taxi right to the door. Try for the room with the balcony overlooking the pool. Excellent value, almost always booked up.
Riad el Fenn http://www.riadelfenn.com/ – Vanessa Branson’s enormous trendy Riad right by the Bab Le Kssour gate. Amazing, enormous roof terrace and one of the best masseuses in town. You can do cookery lessons here, and Viviana who runs it is the absolute oracle on what to buy where in Marrakech.
Villa des Orangers http://www.villadesorangers.com/ – a good Medina option for the summer months, as it has a great pool (long and thin) and wonderful food served poolside. Quite expensive, but everybody I know who stays here returns with glowing reports.
Riad Farnatchi http://www.riadfarnatchi.com/ – trendy French run riad with small plunge pool. Very good with small children apparently!
Dar Karma http://www.dar-karma.com/ – small French-run guesthouse in the Medina; has 5 stylish rooms including 2 four-posters, and a pretty little plunge pool. You can rent the whole house (sleeps 10) for 1125 euro a night.
Riad Malika http://www.riadmalika.com/ Quirky riad with mixture of Moroccan and 60s Portobello stuff. Small square pool. Fantastic food. Cheap dinner, b&b deal.
Riad Lotus Perle – http://www.riadslotus.com/ – great place to stay in the Medina when it’s roasting hot because it’s all marble, and very cool. Small plunge pool. Avoid in winter. Check out my review for Mr & Mrs Smith - http://www.mrandmrssmith.com/luxury-hotels/morocco-hotels/marrakech-hotels/riad-lotus-perle/review/
Riad 72 http://www.riad72.com/ – ultra-chic Italian-run riad near the Bab Doukkala gate. Charming service. No pool.
Dar Les Cicognes http://www.lescigognes.com/ – exquisitely decorated small guesthouse in the Medina. Perfect in the colder months as it has no pool.
Kssour Agafay http://www.kssouragafay.com/ – members’ club in the medina. Marrakech’s answer to the Soho House.
Dar Barmileke http://www.darbamileke.com/uk/default.htm - sweet little family run riad recommended on ASW. Cheap.
WHERE TO STAY: NEW TOWN
Dar Rhizlane http://www.dar-rhizlane.com/ – fake old palace in the new town, just outside the city walls. Really handy for all the good bars and clubs. Beautiful pool.
WHERE TO STAY: PALMERAIE (literally "the palm grove", 15 mins from the Medina)
Dar Zemora – http://www.darzemora.com/ – lovely family run house in the Palmeraie, but relatively close to the Medina. Check out my review for Mr & Mrs Smith at http://www.mrandmrssmith.com/luxury-hotels/morocco-hotels/marrakech-hotels/dar-zemora/review/
Ksar Char Bagh - http://www.ksarcharbagh.com/
What can I say, one of the most beautiful hotels in the world, in the Palmeraie. French-run.
Jnane Tamsna - http://www.mrandmrssmith.com/luxury-hotels/morocco-hotels/marrakech-hotels/jnane-tamsna - chilled out luxury in the beautiful Palmeraie house used for In Spa retreats several times a year.
WHERE TO STAY: ELSEWHERE OUT OF TOWN
Caravanserai http://www.caravanserai.com/ – exquisite hotel with 17 rooms. Out on a limb but very peaceful. Fabulous pool and rooms; some suites have private plunge pools. You can also visit for lunch.
Le Bled http://www.lebled.com/ – a short drive outside town in the countryside, the former home of Pierre Balmain is an uber-chic farmhouse retreat with large airy bedrooms and a glorious pool. Exceptionally good value (as in ridiculously cheap). It would be lovely to stay here for a couple of nights and spend a couple in the Medina.
Coming soon: Murano Oriental Resort (from the team behind the Murano Urban Resort in Paris)
WHERE TO EAT
BO & ZIN (owned by Pierre from La Cantine in Paris) – 4km south east of the Old Town en route to Pacha. A great little jazzy funky scene. Similar to Le Comptoir, with a lovely breeze blowing through it. Good for pre drinks clubbing, also dinner. The food isn’t amazing, but the vibe is ace. Beautiful mod gardens.
CAFE ARABE184 rue Mouassine (00 212 44 42 97 28). Opened at the beginning of 2004, Café Arabe is the first proper café in the sinuous alleys of the Medina. It fills most of an old traditional-style house, with seating beneath the orange trees in the courtyard and in a couple of colourful adjacent salons. It serves Italian food (the café's owners are from Rome) and a lengthy menu of traditional, Moroccan and fruit teas, plus juices, a buffet of salads and pastas, and a selection of own-made quiches, tarts and pastries. There's simply nowhere else in Marrakech that does anything like this. Even better, the premises also include a snug little bruised-pink bar and a canvas-shaded, cushion-strewn terrace with views over the city rooftops which are themselves intoxicating.
CAFE GLACIERHotel CTM, Jemaa el-Fna (00 212 44 42 23 25). Several cafés and restaurants have upper terraces with fine ringside seating from which to observe the mayhem of Jemaa el-Fna. The best of the lot is the Café Glacier, which is above the Hotel CTM. Here, the compulsory purchase of one soft drink (Dhs9) gives access to a rooftop with a sweeping, 270-degree view. Come at dusk for purple skies clouded by drifts and curls of smoke as 100 food stalls fire up the griddles and the smell of grilling meat overlaps with the insistent clattering of hand drums.
CASA LALLA http://www.casalalla.com/
Richard Neat (ex Pied a Terre in London and Neat in Cannes) runs this little riad with his wife Sophie. The restaurant is now open to non residents but you must book. Nouvelle cuisine in the French style. Quite a good place to stay as well.
CHEZ CHEGROUNI
Jemaa-el-Fna. The humble Chez Chegrouni is everybody's favourite cheap restaurant in the Medina. It looks like a garage space with a small terrace out front but it is clean, well run and popular with both locals and tourists. Choose from soups, salads, grilled meats, couscous and tagines on the menu (in English) and scribble your order on one of the paper napkins in the table-glasses; hand it to a waiter and it will come back as your bill at the end of the meal.
LE COMPTOIR
Drinks & dinner, packed with French people, v glamorous, a real scene. Nice courtyard out the back. Ask for a table on the first floor opposite the DJ. “It is hugely stylish, the food is consistently excellent and the floorshow is hysterical. Go straight to the table, rather than having a drink in the bar first, where it is seriously uncomfortable and the staff tend to forget about you. Although there is a long cocktail list, the results can be somewhat hit and miss and I have learnt to stick to the wine list, where mark-ups are rather less than usual. The reception staff clearly favour the good, the great and the beautiful of Gueliz and the Palmeraie, so be sure to request a large table downstairs at the time of booking. Don’t go too early, or you will miss the entertainment.”
DAR MOHA
81 rue Dar el Bacha (00 212 44 386 400). The former home of designer Pierre Balmain now plays host to what is often described as Marrakech's finest restaurant, The 19th-century riad setting is splendid, but only really if you are lucky enough to nab a table in the walled garden by the pool. The pool terrace is closed during the winter. Book well ahead for Friday and Saturday nights.
DAR YACOUT
79 rue Sidi Ahmed Soussi, Arset Ihiri (00 212 44 38 29 29). The food is similar in quality and quantity to that at Le Tobsil, but here the restaurant's reputation rests as much on its looks as its tastes. The building is a madcap mansion with flowering columns, candy striping, fireplaces in the bathrooms and a yellow crenellated rooftop terrace on which drinks are served prior to dining. Tons of fountains with rose petals. Hard to find so make sure the place you are staying in organises it and someone will come to meet you and walk you in.
EL FASSIA
232 avenue Mohammed V (00 212 44 43 40 60). Moroccan à la carte is a rarity but it can be found at El Fassia, which is also unique because it's run by a women's co-operative: the chefs, waiting staff and management are all female. The decor is drab and service can be grumpy but the food (tagines and couscous dishes) is superb. El Fassia is north of the Medina heading toward the new town of Guéliz on main Avenue Mohammed V.
KM 9
Route de l'Ourika, Km9 (00 212 44 37 63 73). Dining at KM 9 also begins with a taxi ride: it is nine kilometres south of the city centre. There is nothing quite like it in town - this is a super-stylish roadhouse on an open country road that combines an informal bar-lounge with intimate dining. The food is Italian, presented in the form of four good-value set menus, each of which kicks off with a superb buffet of antipasti. Plates cleared, guests can spill out into a back garden hung with hundreds of coloured lanterns plus disco lights, glitter ball and a state-of-the-art sound system.
Lalla Takerkout is a restaurant right on the lake near the dam , about a 20 minute ride from Marrakech . It's just meat kebabs and a moroccan tajine with salads . It'll fill you up but the best part is the setting .
LE FONDOUK
55 Souk Hal Fassi, Kat Bennahid (00 212 44 378190). This is the most ragingly chic of the city's new-style restaurants, with a dark, moody décor that invites you to lounge on cushions pondering the relative merits of a croquant de chocolat noir, coulis de fraises or glaces de pistache. Le Fondouk applies cutting-edge European interior design to a fine old riad. The food is Moroccan with excursions into French and Italian cuisine. Allegedly not the best but great value. Book ahead at weekends.
LE SABAL +212 (0)44422422 – amazing new restaurant on Mohamed V Ave in the new town, just opposite Hotel Marrakech, has been compared to the Buddha Bar in Paris but I think is very different. Warm, cosy, velvety palatial rooms indoors, vast palm-covered terrace outside. Cute bar. Described as “the most astonishing renovation of a 1925 villa, central setting, fabulous gardens and interior with red tadelakt and velvet banquettes. Good food, fine vines, impeccable service. French chanson from Henry Salvador to Carla Bruni. Paparazzi-free private rooms.”
LES TERRASSES DE L'ALHAMBRA
Jemaa el-Fna (00 212 44 42 75 70). Outstanding views come as standard at Les Terrasses de l'Alhambra, which is on the edge of Jemaa el-Fna, at the heart of the Medina. It's a smart, French-run operation with coffee, tea and ice cream served on the ground floor and dining on the first-floor terrace from a menu based around salads, pizzas and pasta accompanied by freshly squeezed juices. If the heat is too intense (and it often is) there is the option of the air-conditioned interior.
LE TOBSIL
22 Derb Moulay Abdellah Ben Hessaien, Bab Ksour (00 212 44 44 4052). In typical Marrakech fashion, the food at Le Tobsil just keeps on coming, course after course after course. But far from being a test of endurance, the experience is more like unwrapping presents at Christmas: you can't wait to see what's next. Aperitifs (included in the price, as is the wine) are followed by a swarm of small vegetarian meze dishes; then comes a flaky pastilla, followed by a tagine and a couscous dish; finally there is fruit and tea/coffee accompanied by cakes or pastries. The setting is equally rich, a gorgeous old traditional house deep in the Medina where guests are seated on two levels around a courtyard and entertained by gnawa musicians playing a trance-inducing Moroccan form of blues.
LES TROIS PALMIERS
La Mamounia, Avenue Bab Jedid (00 212 44 38 86 00; http://www.mamounia.com/). Reviews of the rooms at La Mamounia, the grande dame of Marrakech hotels, are mixed, to say the least; and service can border on the offensive. But the place does serve good food: L'Italien and Le Marocain restaurants are both excellent. Best of all is the lavish buffet laid on at the poolside Les Trois Palmiers. Feast on dozens of salads, plus steaks and seafood charcoal-grilled to order, with sugary pastries, fruit tarts and mousses to follow. Finally, walk off the excess in the lovely gardens surrounding the pool. These date back to the 18th century and have a formal design of walkways, flowerbeds, orange groves and olive trees maintained by a team of 40 specialists wielding secateurs. But be warned that al fresco does not mean casual, and smart dress is definitely required.
NARWAMA (or something like that) is a gorgeous looking Thai restaurant that Richard Neat of Casa Lalla raves about. It's huge and bling and a great break from Moroccan food if you are staying for a week.
STALLS IN THE MEDINA
As the sun sets on the central square of Jemaa el-Fna, 100 open kitchens are swiftly set up in tightly drawn rows, set with benches and illuminated by lights strung overhead. Within the space of no more than half an hour a public thoroughfare is transformed into what must be one of the world's biggest open-air eateries. Most stalls specialise in one particular dish. Novices can play safe with familiar-looking fare such as grilled brochettes, the spicy sausage known as merguez or harira, the local broth of lamb, lentils, chickpeas and vegetables. Followers in the footsteps of Anthony Bourdain can test their mettle with boiled sheep heads, eel and mounds of snails cooked in an herb-rich sauce. Discs of bread take the place of cutlery. Language isn't an issue as menus and prices hang above most stalls; otherwise, just point at what you want.
TERRASSES DI GIANCARLO or something
Best Italian restaurant around a fabulous pool. Tremayne from A Hedonist’s Guide says they’ve had some terrible reports lately though.
WHERE TO DRINK & DANCE
CAFE ARABE
184 rue el Mouassine (00 212 4442 9728). Recently opened and still waiting for that precious liquor licence, Café Arabe is already a firm favourite among the foreign contingent. The rooftop terrace practically overlooks the nearby mosque. (The call to prayer sounds particularly fine at sundown).
CAFE DE FRANCEJemaa el Fna. Sip mint tea on the top-floor terrace while you watch the theatrics below.
DAR CHERIFA8 Derb Cherifa Lakhbir, Mouassine (00 212 44 426 463). Attractive 'café litteraire'and gallery in the Mouassine district, housed in a lovely riad dating from the 17th century. Cultural events are held in the courtyard.
JAD MAHALFontaine de la Mamounia (00 212 44 436984). This is a complex of bar, restaurant and dance space beside the roundabout just over the way from the Mamounia, near Le Comptoir. Take in the outrageous folie de grandeur of this contemporary orientalist fantasy. The newest and hippest addition to Marrakech nightlife. The club downstairs is hilarious.. and the bar/restaurant upstairs is beautiful with belly dancers and dwarfs (well one dwarf) serving drinks..( very decadent)
LE COMPTOIR
Avenue Echouhada, Hivernage (00 212 4443 7702). For post-dinner drinks on a Saturday night, le tout Marrakech decamps to Le Comptoir for funky music in a gorgeous setting, respkendent with black and red tadlekt walls and a slinky grand staircase littered with pink rose petals. Well-heeled Marrakech comes out to play, with expensive drinks and a ritzy clientele. Interesting as an experience of modern Morocco at its most Westernised and fashion-conscious. The food is missable but the experience - especially the bellydancers who appear around midnight - is not.
LE TEATRO
Hotel Es Saadi, Ave Wl Quadissia (00 212 4444 8811). One of Marrakech's trendiest discos - jaw-droppingly fabulous but apparently quite ravey. Best at weekends.
PACHA
Newly opened and gobsmackingly fantastic - with two restaurants (one is Alain Ducasse's Crystal) and gorgeous terrace lounge overlooking a swimming pool - and located on the route de l’Ourika, see http://www.pachamarrakech.com/. The only problem is it’s always empty when I go but apparently this is no longer the case at weekends. Email rima@pachamarrakech.com for guestlist.
WHITE ROOM
The newly opened White Room underneath the Hotel Royal Mirage in Hivernage looks like a disco from the eighties. Locals like the understatement of the place, its small size, the looong drinks and the DJ's list.
DAYTIME
NIKKI BEACH – formerly The Sunset Club. Massive lagoon style pool with nice restaurant, big day beds and really loud clubby music. Ask for Noureddine who runs it and mention my name. http://www.ilove-marrakesh.com/sunsetclub
SIGHTSEEING
JEMAA EL-FNA
Jemaa el-Fna, the main open space in Marrakech, is as old as the city itself. It is thronged day and night with a carnival of local life, including snake-charmers (a few dirhams for a photograph with a snake draped over your shoulders, and a few more to have it removed); dentists (teeth pulled on the spot); scribes (letters written to order); herbalists (cures for everything and nothing); and beggars (to whom Moroccans give generously). In the evenings, the square becomes a venue for alfresco eating and entertainment of a bizarre nature with troupes of costumed acrobats, storytellers, magicians, transvestite dancers and semi-mystical gnawa musicians attended by small knots of wild-eyed devotees giddy on the repetitive rhythms. Tourists are welcome to watch but nothing here is staged for their benefit.
KOUTOUBIA MOSQUE
The centrepiece of Marrakech is the square tower of the Koutoubia minaret, attached to the Koutoubia Mosque, built in the early 1100s. It's not particularly high but it towers over the Medina thanks to a long-standing planning ordinance that forbids any other building in the old city to rise above the height of a palm tree. LES BAINS DE MARRAKECHRiad Mehdi, 2 Derb Sedra, Bab Agnaou (00 212 44 38 14 28; http://www.riadmehdi.com/). Les Bains de Marrakech is an elegant spa centre, occupying one half of an old townhouse pressed up against the 12th-century city walls in the southern kasbah quarter. A full range of treatments, from water massage to shiatsu, plus steam-cleaning in a traditional hammam, are on offer. You can have a whole day of treatment then finish off with cocktails at the bar of Riad Mehdi, the boutique hotel that occupies the other half of the townhouse.
MAJORELLE GARDEN
Avenue Yacoub el-Mansour. Privately owned by fashion designer and long-time Marrakech resident Yves Saint Laurent, the Majorelle Garden was created in the 1930s by two generations of French artists, Louis Majorelle and his son Jacques. The former's speciality was furniture, the latter's Orientalism, but the enduring Majorelle legacy is a virulent shade of powder-blue that carries their name. It colours the water channels, urns and the artists' former studio (now a museum of Islamic art), making a striking contrast with bamboo groves, cacti, great palms and pools floating with water lilies. The effect is like walking through a Gauguin painting.
MUSEE DE MARRAKECHPlace Ben Youssef (00 212 44 39 09 11). At the heart of the Medina, the Musée de Marrakech is a conversion of an opulent, early 20th-century house formerly belonging to a local grandee. Exhibits rotate but concentrate on Moroccan and/or Islamic arts and crafts such as court ceramics and tribal textiles. The star attraction is the building itself, particularly the polychromic-tiled central court. There's a pleasant courtyard café and a very good bookshop. Crucially, the museum is one of the very few air-conditioned buildings in the old city - worth the price of admission alone during the hot summer months. Open 9.30am to 6pm daily.
BAHIA PALACE
Riad Zitoun El Jedid (00 212 44 389 221). A 19th-century palace with lush decoration so highly worked that it verges on kitsch, but devoid of contents so a bit dull. Puff Daddy threw a party here before he was P Diddy. Open daily from 8.45am to 11.45am, 2.45pm to 5.45pm.
BEN YOUSSEF MEDERSA
Place Ben Youssef (00 212 44 39 09 11). Visit the Ben Youseef Medersa for its spectacular interiors, so striking that it upstaged Kate Winslet in the scenes they shared in the film Hideous Kinky. The Ben Youssef Medersa is a 16th-century Koranic school that was lovingly restored and buffed up to perfection in the late 1990s. The serene courtyard has a central water-filled basin and façades enhanced with tiling, stucco and carved cedar.
CITY WALLS
Hop into a horse-drawn calèche for a tour around the outside of the city walls. First constructed in the 12th century, these form a neat circuit of six miles punctuated by about 200 towers and 20 gates. Made of pisé, the fortifications possess a pinkish tinge and glow beautifully in the setting sun. A complete whirl around takes the best part of an hou; prices are fixed by the municipality and are posted beside the carriages, which wait in line on the north side of place de Foucauld (just follow your nose).
DAR CHERIFA
8 Derb Charfa Lakbir Mouassine, off Rue Mouassine (00 212 44 42 64 63): Dar Cherifa is a restored townhouse among the souks. Owner Abdelatif Ben Abdellah is a leading light in the rejuvenation of the old city. Here he has taken great pains to expose carved beams and stucco work while leaving walls and floors bare and free of distraction, all the better to enhance the hanging of regular exhibitions by resident local and foreign artists. The venue also hosts occasional performances by gnawa and Sufi musicians and incorporates a small library. Anybody is free to drop by, and tea and coffee are served. Really lovely and feels authentic.
MEDERSA BEN YOUSSEF
Place Ben Youssef. This is also worth a visit for its pools and arches, its carved cedarwood doorways and tranquil patios that bring to mind all the glories of Andalucian architecture. Open daily except Fri, 9am to noon, 2.30pm to 6pm.
MUSEE D'ART REGIONAL DAR SI SAID
Riad Zitoun El Jedid (00 212 44 389 564). Open Wed to Mon, 9am to noon, 3pm to 6pm.
WHERE TO SHOP
SOUKS
At the heart of Marrakech, filling the alleys north of the central square, are the souks, mile after constricted mile of tiny, closet-sized emporia. The sheer number of shops is overwhelming - 100 of them in 100 metres - although many seem compelled to offer exactly the same non-essential wares, particularly babouches (canary-yellow slippers, from Dhs30), jellabas (embroidered gowns, from Dhs100) and etched brass platters the size of manhole covers. Every section of the souk has its own speciality, with alleys devoted to everything from spices and ironwork to the ingredients necessary for casting magic spells. Areas worth seeking out include the Criée Berbère, a knot of dimly lit, roofed passageways that was once a slave market but is now the centre of the carpet trade, and the Kissaria, a ladder of arrow-straight, shoulder-width alleys lined with stallholders specialising in cotton, clothing, kaftans and blankets. The most photogenic is the Souk des Teinturiers, or dyers' souk, rendered dazzling by drying sheafs of coloured wool. The shops nearby major in pottery, lanterns and assorted pieces of metalwork.Souks are generally open daily 9am-7pm and closed Friday mornings. Hotels all but push guides on clients, warning of the dangers of unaccompanied forays into the souks; but you don't really need them. Thanks to government crackdowns, hassle from over-eager salesmen is a thing of the past. And it's almost impossible to get lost: the myriad alleys may be winding but the Medina is not that big and you only need ask a local for help to be set back on the right track. And as for guides securing cheaper prices when haggling, forget it - any savings made are more than gobbled up by their own commissions.
MUSTAPHA BLAOUI
142-144 Bab Doukkala (00 212 44 38 52 40). It's a lazy cliché but no description better fits Mustapha Blaoui than 'an Aladdin's cave'. Hidden behind blank-faced double doors, it's a warehouse piled with floor-to-ceiling irresistibles from candlesticks and lanterns (from Dhs100 and Dhs150 respectively) to pots and bowls and tables and chairs. There's enough ornamentation and inspiration here to furnish a whole series of Changing Rooms. The helpful staff will happily organise shipping overseas.
BELDI
9-11 rue Mouassine, Bab Fteuh (00 212 44 44 10 76). Wealthy Marrakech socialites hoping to turn heads at the next soirée pay a visit to Beldi. A tiny kiosk of a boutique at the entrance to the souks, it is the display space for the work of brothers Toufik and Abdelhafid. Together they tailor seasonal men's and women's collections of Moroccan clothing in the most beautiful colours and fabrics, fashioned with flair and an eye to Western tastes. Beautiful handmade velvet coats lined with silk start from around Dhs1,700, men's shirts in fine linen start from about Dhs500. The brothers expect to have a second shop in the Medina dedicated to their own home-decor products; viewing will be by appointment only.
KULCHI1 Rue Ksour, off Rue Sidi El Yamani, Bab El Ksour (00 212 44 42 91 77). Florence Taranne's Kulchi boutique, near the Medina's Bab El Ksour gate, had its origins in her small shop in the courtyard garden of supper club Le Comptoir (see Nightlife). Her own-label clothing is light and playful, marrying trippy colours and patterning with Moroccan cuts and embroidery. Accessories include raffia shoes from Essaouira, leather shopping bags with khamsa (hand) motifs and T-shirts by Hassan Hajjaj (as worn by staff at hip London restaurant Momo).
SCÈNES DE LIN 70 rue de la Liberté (00 212 44 43 61 08). Shops in the souk specialise in the pretty but useless, so for beautiful and functional things head to the new town of Guéliz, just a 10-minute taxi ride from the central Medina. Owned by Anne-Marie Chaoui, Scènes de Lin deals mainly in linens but also offers striped woven cloth in a huge range of brilliant hues and organdie in delicate pastels. Any combination can be ordered for custom-made curtains, tablecloths or place settings. The shop stocks plenty of other top-quality stuff besides, including luxurious fringed hammam towels, cushions with Fes embroidery, natural essential oils and unusual contemporary lamps.
MINISTRO DEL GUSTO, Derb Azouz 22 El Mouassine, Marrakech (00 212 4 426455; fax: 427936; email: mailto:%20mingusto@cybernet.net.ma). This gallery ("the ministry of taste") is owned by fashion-editor-turned-furniture-designer Alessandra Lippini and her partner, Fabrizio Bizzarri. It has become a key shopping destination in Marrakech. Go for the gorgeous wooden furniture, bas-relief panels and local objets d'art. Lippini often works by special commission from interior designers. Appointments are preferred, but there is always someone there to open the door to a casual visitor.
RIAD TAMSNA Ten minutes by foot from the central square, Djemaa el-Fna (00 212 4 385272) houses a gallery, as well as an emporium selling all sorts of homewares, from bed and bath products to local delicacies and pots of preserves. There is also a restaurant specialising in a Moroccan fusion of Indian, French and Lebanese cuisine. Expensive but very elegant, and a paradigm of what modern Marrakech is all about.
AKKAL/MIA ZIAQuartier Industriel Sidi Ghanem No.322, route de Safi (00 212 44 33 59 38). Committed shopaholics should take a ride out to the Quartier Industriel at Sidi Ghanem. This is the city's warehouse belt, home to several fine factory showrooms. Akkal does modern takes on classic Moroccan shapes in furniture and ceramics, but also sells linens, clothes and pick n' mix dinnerware in the most fantastic colours, from Dhs55. The same showroom also displays Mia Zia wares by Valérie Barkowski (known through her boutiques in Paris, Marseille, Geneva and St Barts) including crisp, white, cotton bed linen with embroidered borders (from Dhs550) and plush fringed towels (from Dhs350). Prices are half what you'd pay in Europe.
LA MEDINA Quartier Industriel Sidi Ghanem No. 24, route de Safi (00 212 44 33 61 32). Also in the Quartier Industriel Sidi Ghanem, La Medina sells ceramics, tableware and furniture originally created for restaurants and hotels.
OUT OF TOWN
Kasbah Agafay – under the same ownership as Kssour Agafay (above), this is a former Sufi shrine, a fort converted to a hotel. Lux boho chic. Great food and pool. 25 mins out of town and you can go just for lunch and spa treatments (with curiously unrelaxing music - Frank Sinatra the last time I was there!).
Kasbah Tamadot is Richard Branson’s place in the High Atlas mountains, like the Kasbah Agafay with knobs on, but a longer drive.
In the summertime take a trip to the sea (with a driver) to Essaouira. There is a FABULOUS new hotel there called Madada Mogador which has a great restaurant apparently - http://www.i-escape.com/hotel.php?hotel_key=MC058. Upmarket of that is L’Heure Bleue (http://www.heure-bleue.com/) which is much more expensive but is a proper riad with pool, hammam etc. The other place everybody goes to there is called Villa Maroc – don’t bother (over priced, over rated, not v clean).
(scroll down for Mykonos info!)
WHO FLIES TO MARRAKECH FROM UK?
British Airways
Royal Air Maroc
Atlas Blue (charter company)
Easyjet
ThomsonFly go from Manchester, from £4.73!
BEFORE YOU GO
Arm yourself with a copy of the Hedonist’s Guide to Marrakech which is available to buyonline. See http://www.ahedonistsguideto.com/ or http://www.hg2.com/
WHEN SHOULD I GO?
May, September, October are hot but not unbearable. Prices drop on June 1st as it gets hotter. Weather guide at
http://www.weather.com/activities/travel/businesstraveler/weather/climo-monthly-graph.html?locid=MOXX0004&from=search
WHERE TO STAY: MEDINA
Riad Mehdi – http://www.riadmehdi.net/ – New build but looks old. Beautiful pair of traditionally decorated houses around a central courtyard – with spa treatments & very pretty pool area. In the Medina (the old City) but at the edge, so you can take a taxi right to the door. Try for the room with the balcony overlooking the pool. Excellent value, almost always booked up.
Riad el Fenn http://www.riadelfenn.com/ – Vanessa Branson’s enormous trendy Riad right by the Bab Le Kssour gate. Amazing, enormous roof terrace and one of the best masseuses in town. You can do cookery lessons here, and Viviana who runs it is the absolute oracle on what to buy where in Marrakech.
Villa des Orangers http://www.villadesorangers.com/ – a good Medina option for the summer months, as it has a great pool (long and thin) and wonderful food served poolside. Quite expensive, but everybody I know who stays here returns with glowing reports.
Riad Farnatchi http://www.riadfarnatchi.com/ – trendy French run riad with small plunge pool. Very good with small children apparently!
Dar Karma http://www.dar-karma.com/ – small French-run guesthouse in the Medina; has 5 stylish rooms including 2 four-posters, and a pretty little plunge pool. You can rent the whole house (sleeps 10) for 1125 euro a night.
Riad Malika http://www.riadmalika.com/ Quirky riad with mixture of Moroccan and 60s Portobello stuff. Small square pool. Fantastic food. Cheap dinner, b&b deal.
Riad Lotus Perle – http://www.riadslotus.com/ – great place to stay in the Medina when it’s roasting hot because it’s all marble, and very cool. Small plunge pool. Avoid in winter. Check out my review for Mr & Mrs Smith - http://www.mrandmrssmith.com/luxury-hotels/morocco-hotels/marrakech-hotels/riad-lotus-perle/review/
Riad 72 http://www.riad72.com/ – ultra-chic Italian-run riad near the Bab Doukkala gate. Charming service. No pool.
Dar Les Cicognes http://www.lescigognes.com/ – exquisitely decorated small guesthouse in the Medina. Perfect in the colder months as it has no pool.
Kssour Agafay http://www.kssouragafay.com/ – members’ club in the medina. Marrakech’s answer to the Soho House.
Dar Barmileke http://www.darbamileke.com/uk/default.htm - sweet little family run riad recommended on ASW. Cheap.
WHERE TO STAY: NEW TOWN
Dar Rhizlane http://www.dar-rhizlane.com/ – fake old palace in the new town, just outside the city walls. Really handy for all the good bars and clubs. Beautiful pool.
WHERE TO STAY: PALMERAIE (literally "the palm grove", 15 mins from the Medina)
Dar Zemora – http://www.darzemora.com/ – lovely family run house in the Palmeraie, but relatively close to the Medina. Check out my review for Mr & Mrs Smith at http://www.mrandmrssmith.com/luxury-hotels/morocco-hotels/marrakech-hotels/dar-zemora/review/
Ksar Char Bagh - http://www.ksarcharbagh.com/
What can I say, one of the most beautiful hotels in the world, in the Palmeraie. French-run.
Jnane Tamsna - http://www.mrandmrssmith.com/luxury-hotels/morocco-hotels/marrakech-hotels/jnane-tamsna - chilled out luxury in the beautiful Palmeraie house used for In Spa retreats several times a year.
WHERE TO STAY: ELSEWHERE OUT OF TOWN
Caravanserai http://www.caravanserai.com/ – exquisite hotel with 17 rooms. Out on a limb but very peaceful. Fabulous pool and rooms; some suites have private plunge pools. You can also visit for lunch.
Le Bled http://www.lebled.com/ – a short drive outside town in the countryside, the former home of Pierre Balmain is an uber-chic farmhouse retreat with large airy bedrooms and a glorious pool. Exceptionally good value (as in ridiculously cheap). It would be lovely to stay here for a couple of nights and spend a couple in the Medina.
Coming soon: Murano Oriental Resort (from the team behind the Murano Urban Resort in Paris)
WHERE TO EAT
BO & ZIN (owned by Pierre from La Cantine in Paris) – 4km south east of the Old Town en route to Pacha. A great little jazzy funky scene. Similar to Le Comptoir, with a lovely breeze blowing through it. Good for pre drinks clubbing, also dinner. The food isn’t amazing, but the vibe is ace. Beautiful mod gardens.
CAFE ARABE184 rue Mouassine (00 212 44 42 97 28). Opened at the beginning of 2004, Café Arabe is the first proper café in the sinuous alleys of the Medina. It fills most of an old traditional-style house, with seating beneath the orange trees in the courtyard and in a couple of colourful adjacent salons. It serves Italian food (the café's owners are from Rome) and a lengthy menu of traditional, Moroccan and fruit teas, plus juices, a buffet of salads and pastas, and a selection of own-made quiches, tarts and pastries. There's simply nowhere else in Marrakech that does anything like this. Even better, the premises also include a snug little bruised-pink bar and a canvas-shaded, cushion-strewn terrace with views over the city rooftops which are themselves intoxicating.
CAFE GLACIERHotel CTM, Jemaa el-Fna (00 212 44 42 23 25). Several cafés and restaurants have upper terraces with fine ringside seating from which to observe the mayhem of Jemaa el-Fna. The best of the lot is the Café Glacier, which is above the Hotel CTM. Here, the compulsory purchase of one soft drink (Dhs9) gives access to a rooftop with a sweeping, 270-degree view. Come at dusk for purple skies clouded by drifts and curls of smoke as 100 food stalls fire up the griddles and the smell of grilling meat overlaps with the insistent clattering of hand drums.
CASA LALLA http://www.casalalla.com/
Richard Neat (ex Pied a Terre in London and Neat in Cannes) runs this little riad with his wife Sophie. The restaurant is now open to non residents but you must book. Nouvelle cuisine in the French style. Quite a good place to stay as well.
CHEZ CHEGROUNI
Jemaa-el-Fna. The humble Chez Chegrouni is everybody's favourite cheap restaurant in the Medina. It looks like a garage space with a small terrace out front but it is clean, well run and popular with both locals and tourists. Choose from soups, salads, grilled meats, couscous and tagines on the menu (in English) and scribble your order on one of the paper napkins in the table-glasses; hand it to a waiter and it will come back as your bill at the end of the meal.
LE COMPTOIR
Drinks & dinner, packed with French people, v glamorous, a real scene. Nice courtyard out the back. Ask for a table on the first floor opposite the DJ. “It is hugely stylish, the food is consistently excellent and the floorshow is hysterical. Go straight to the table, rather than having a drink in the bar first, where it is seriously uncomfortable and the staff tend to forget about you. Although there is a long cocktail list, the results can be somewhat hit and miss and I have learnt to stick to the wine list, where mark-ups are rather less than usual. The reception staff clearly favour the good, the great and the beautiful of Gueliz and the Palmeraie, so be sure to request a large table downstairs at the time of booking. Don’t go too early, or you will miss the entertainment.”
DAR MOHA
81 rue Dar el Bacha (00 212 44 386 400). The former home of designer Pierre Balmain now plays host to what is often described as Marrakech's finest restaurant, The 19th-century riad setting is splendid, but only really if you are lucky enough to nab a table in the walled garden by the pool. The pool terrace is closed during the winter. Book well ahead for Friday and Saturday nights.
DAR YACOUT
79 rue Sidi Ahmed Soussi, Arset Ihiri (00 212 44 38 29 29). The food is similar in quality and quantity to that at Le Tobsil, but here the restaurant's reputation rests as much on its looks as its tastes. The building is a madcap mansion with flowering columns, candy striping, fireplaces in the bathrooms and a yellow crenellated rooftop terrace on which drinks are served prior to dining. Tons of fountains with rose petals. Hard to find so make sure the place you are staying in organises it and someone will come to meet you and walk you in.
EL FASSIA
232 avenue Mohammed V (00 212 44 43 40 60). Moroccan à la carte is a rarity but it can be found at El Fassia, which is also unique because it's run by a women's co-operative: the chefs, waiting staff and management are all female. The decor is drab and service can be grumpy but the food (tagines and couscous dishes) is superb. El Fassia is north of the Medina heading toward the new town of Guéliz on main Avenue Mohammed V.
KM 9
Route de l'Ourika, Km9 (00 212 44 37 63 73). Dining at KM 9 also begins with a taxi ride: it is nine kilometres south of the city centre. There is nothing quite like it in town - this is a super-stylish roadhouse on an open country road that combines an informal bar-lounge with intimate dining. The food is Italian, presented in the form of four good-value set menus, each of which kicks off with a superb buffet of antipasti. Plates cleared, guests can spill out into a back garden hung with hundreds of coloured lanterns plus disco lights, glitter ball and a state-of-the-art sound system.
Lalla Takerkout is a restaurant right on the lake near the dam , about a 20 minute ride from Marrakech . It's just meat kebabs and a moroccan tajine with salads . It'll fill you up but the best part is the setting .
LE FONDOUK
55 Souk Hal Fassi, Kat Bennahid (00 212 44 378190). This is the most ragingly chic of the city's new-style restaurants, with a dark, moody décor that invites you to lounge on cushions pondering the relative merits of a croquant de chocolat noir, coulis de fraises or glaces de pistache. Le Fondouk applies cutting-edge European interior design to a fine old riad. The food is Moroccan with excursions into French and Italian cuisine. Allegedly not the best but great value. Book ahead at weekends.
LE SABAL +212 (0)44422422 – amazing new restaurant on Mohamed V Ave in the new town, just opposite Hotel Marrakech, has been compared to the Buddha Bar in Paris but I think is very different. Warm, cosy, velvety palatial rooms indoors, vast palm-covered terrace outside. Cute bar. Described as “the most astonishing renovation of a 1925 villa, central setting, fabulous gardens and interior with red tadelakt and velvet banquettes. Good food, fine vines, impeccable service. French chanson from Henry Salvador to Carla Bruni. Paparazzi-free private rooms.”
LES TERRASSES DE L'ALHAMBRA
Jemaa el-Fna (00 212 44 42 75 70). Outstanding views come as standard at Les Terrasses de l'Alhambra, which is on the edge of Jemaa el-Fna, at the heart of the Medina. It's a smart, French-run operation with coffee, tea and ice cream served on the ground floor and dining on the first-floor terrace from a menu based around salads, pizzas and pasta accompanied by freshly squeezed juices. If the heat is too intense (and it often is) there is the option of the air-conditioned interior.
LE TOBSIL
22 Derb Moulay Abdellah Ben Hessaien, Bab Ksour (00 212 44 44 4052). In typical Marrakech fashion, the food at Le Tobsil just keeps on coming, course after course after course. But far from being a test of endurance, the experience is more like unwrapping presents at Christmas: you can't wait to see what's next. Aperitifs (included in the price, as is the wine) are followed by a swarm of small vegetarian meze dishes; then comes a flaky pastilla, followed by a tagine and a couscous dish; finally there is fruit and tea/coffee accompanied by cakes or pastries. The setting is equally rich, a gorgeous old traditional house deep in the Medina where guests are seated on two levels around a courtyard and entertained by gnawa musicians playing a trance-inducing Moroccan form of blues.
LES TROIS PALMIERS
La Mamounia, Avenue Bab Jedid (00 212 44 38 86 00; http://www.mamounia.com/). Reviews of the rooms at La Mamounia, the grande dame of Marrakech hotels, are mixed, to say the least; and service can border on the offensive. But the place does serve good food: L'Italien and Le Marocain restaurants are both excellent. Best of all is the lavish buffet laid on at the poolside Les Trois Palmiers. Feast on dozens of salads, plus steaks and seafood charcoal-grilled to order, with sugary pastries, fruit tarts and mousses to follow. Finally, walk off the excess in the lovely gardens surrounding the pool. These date back to the 18th century and have a formal design of walkways, flowerbeds, orange groves and olive trees maintained by a team of 40 specialists wielding secateurs. But be warned that al fresco does not mean casual, and smart dress is definitely required.
NARWAMA (or something like that) is a gorgeous looking Thai restaurant that Richard Neat of Casa Lalla raves about. It's huge and bling and a great break from Moroccan food if you are staying for a week.
STALLS IN THE MEDINA
As the sun sets on the central square of Jemaa el-Fna, 100 open kitchens are swiftly set up in tightly drawn rows, set with benches and illuminated by lights strung overhead. Within the space of no more than half an hour a public thoroughfare is transformed into what must be one of the world's biggest open-air eateries. Most stalls specialise in one particular dish. Novices can play safe with familiar-looking fare such as grilled brochettes, the spicy sausage known as merguez or harira, the local broth of lamb, lentils, chickpeas and vegetables. Followers in the footsteps of Anthony Bourdain can test their mettle with boiled sheep heads, eel and mounds of snails cooked in an herb-rich sauce. Discs of bread take the place of cutlery. Language isn't an issue as menus and prices hang above most stalls; otherwise, just point at what you want.
TERRASSES DI GIANCARLO or something
Best Italian restaurant around a fabulous pool. Tremayne from A Hedonist’s Guide says they’ve had some terrible reports lately though.
WHERE TO DRINK & DANCE
CAFE ARABE
184 rue el Mouassine (00 212 4442 9728). Recently opened and still waiting for that precious liquor licence, Café Arabe is already a firm favourite among the foreign contingent. The rooftop terrace practically overlooks the nearby mosque. (The call to prayer sounds particularly fine at sundown).
CAFE DE FRANCEJemaa el Fna. Sip mint tea on the top-floor terrace while you watch the theatrics below.
DAR CHERIFA8 Derb Cherifa Lakhbir, Mouassine (00 212 44 426 463). Attractive 'café litteraire'and gallery in the Mouassine district, housed in a lovely riad dating from the 17th century. Cultural events are held in the courtyard.
JAD MAHALFontaine de la Mamounia (00 212 44 436984). This is a complex of bar, restaurant and dance space beside the roundabout just over the way from the Mamounia, near Le Comptoir. Take in the outrageous folie de grandeur of this contemporary orientalist fantasy. The newest and hippest addition to Marrakech nightlife. The club downstairs is hilarious.. and the bar/restaurant upstairs is beautiful with belly dancers and dwarfs (well one dwarf) serving drinks..( very decadent)
LE COMPTOIR
Avenue Echouhada, Hivernage (00 212 4443 7702). For post-dinner drinks on a Saturday night, le tout Marrakech decamps to Le Comptoir for funky music in a gorgeous setting, respkendent with black and red tadlekt walls and a slinky grand staircase littered with pink rose petals. Well-heeled Marrakech comes out to play, with expensive drinks and a ritzy clientele. Interesting as an experience of modern Morocco at its most Westernised and fashion-conscious. The food is missable but the experience - especially the bellydancers who appear around midnight - is not.
LE TEATRO
Hotel Es Saadi, Ave Wl Quadissia (00 212 4444 8811). One of Marrakech's trendiest discos - jaw-droppingly fabulous but apparently quite ravey. Best at weekends.
PACHA
Newly opened and gobsmackingly fantastic - with two restaurants (one is Alain Ducasse's Crystal) and gorgeous terrace lounge overlooking a swimming pool - and located on the route de l’Ourika, see http://www.pachamarrakech.com/. The only problem is it’s always empty when I go but apparently this is no longer the case at weekends. Email rima@pachamarrakech.com for guestlist.
WHITE ROOM
The newly opened White Room underneath the Hotel Royal Mirage in Hivernage looks like a disco from the eighties. Locals like the understatement of the place, its small size, the looong drinks and the DJ's list.
DAYTIME
NIKKI BEACH – formerly The Sunset Club. Massive lagoon style pool with nice restaurant, big day beds and really loud clubby music. Ask for Noureddine who runs it and mention my name. http://www.ilove-marrakesh.com/sunsetclub
SIGHTSEEING
JEMAA EL-FNA
Jemaa el-Fna, the main open space in Marrakech, is as old as the city itself. It is thronged day and night with a carnival of local life, including snake-charmers (a few dirhams for a photograph with a snake draped over your shoulders, and a few more to have it removed); dentists (teeth pulled on the spot); scribes (letters written to order); herbalists (cures for everything and nothing); and beggars (to whom Moroccans give generously). In the evenings, the square becomes a venue for alfresco eating and entertainment of a bizarre nature with troupes of costumed acrobats, storytellers, magicians, transvestite dancers and semi-mystical gnawa musicians attended by small knots of wild-eyed devotees giddy on the repetitive rhythms. Tourists are welcome to watch but nothing here is staged for their benefit.
KOUTOUBIA MOSQUE
The centrepiece of Marrakech is the square tower of the Koutoubia minaret, attached to the Koutoubia Mosque, built in the early 1100s. It's not particularly high but it towers over the Medina thanks to a long-standing planning ordinance that forbids any other building in the old city to rise above the height of a palm tree. LES BAINS DE MARRAKECHRiad Mehdi, 2 Derb Sedra, Bab Agnaou (00 212 44 38 14 28; http://www.riadmehdi.com/). Les Bains de Marrakech is an elegant spa centre, occupying one half of an old townhouse pressed up against the 12th-century city walls in the southern kasbah quarter. A full range of treatments, from water massage to shiatsu, plus steam-cleaning in a traditional hammam, are on offer. You can have a whole day of treatment then finish off with cocktails at the bar of Riad Mehdi, the boutique hotel that occupies the other half of the townhouse.
MAJORELLE GARDEN
Avenue Yacoub el-Mansour. Privately owned by fashion designer and long-time Marrakech resident Yves Saint Laurent, the Majorelle Garden was created in the 1930s by two generations of French artists, Louis Majorelle and his son Jacques. The former's speciality was furniture, the latter's Orientalism, but the enduring Majorelle legacy is a virulent shade of powder-blue that carries their name. It colours the water channels, urns and the artists' former studio (now a museum of Islamic art), making a striking contrast with bamboo groves, cacti, great palms and pools floating with water lilies. The effect is like walking through a Gauguin painting.
MUSEE DE MARRAKECHPlace Ben Youssef (00 212 44 39 09 11). At the heart of the Medina, the Musée de Marrakech is a conversion of an opulent, early 20th-century house formerly belonging to a local grandee. Exhibits rotate but concentrate on Moroccan and/or Islamic arts and crafts such as court ceramics and tribal textiles. The star attraction is the building itself, particularly the polychromic-tiled central court. There's a pleasant courtyard café and a very good bookshop. Crucially, the museum is one of the very few air-conditioned buildings in the old city - worth the price of admission alone during the hot summer months. Open 9.30am to 6pm daily.
BAHIA PALACE
Riad Zitoun El Jedid (00 212 44 389 221). A 19th-century palace with lush decoration so highly worked that it verges on kitsch, but devoid of contents so a bit dull. Puff Daddy threw a party here before he was P Diddy. Open daily from 8.45am to 11.45am, 2.45pm to 5.45pm.
BEN YOUSSEF MEDERSA
Place Ben Youssef (00 212 44 39 09 11). Visit the Ben Youseef Medersa for its spectacular interiors, so striking that it upstaged Kate Winslet in the scenes they shared in the film Hideous Kinky. The Ben Youssef Medersa is a 16th-century Koranic school that was lovingly restored and buffed up to perfection in the late 1990s. The serene courtyard has a central water-filled basin and façades enhanced with tiling, stucco and carved cedar.
CITY WALLS
Hop into a horse-drawn calèche for a tour around the outside of the city walls. First constructed in the 12th century, these form a neat circuit of six miles punctuated by about 200 towers and 20 gates. Made of pisé, the fortifications possess a pinkish tinge and glow beautifully in the setting sun. A complete whirl around takes the best part of an hou; prices are fixed by the municipality and are posted beside the carriages, which wait in line on the north side of place de Foucauld (just follow your nose).
DAR CHERIFA
8 Derb Charfa Lakbir Mouassine, off Rue Mouassine (00 212 44 42 64 63): Dar Cherifa is a restored townhouse among the souks. Owner Abdelatif Ben Abdellah is a leading light in the rejuvenation of the old city. Here he has taken great pains to expose carved beams and stucco work while leaving walls and floors bare and free of distraction, all the better to enhance the hanging of regular exhibitions by resident local and foreign artists. The venue also hosts occasional performances by gnawa and Sufi musicians and incorporates a small library. Anybody is free to drop by, and tea and coffee are served. Really lovely and feels authentic.
MEDERSA BEN YOUSSEF
Place Ben Youssef. This is also worth a visit for its pools and arches, its carved cedarwood doorways and tranquil patios that bring to mind all the glories of Andalucian architecture. Open daily except Fri, 9am to noon, 2.30pm to 6pm.
MUSEE D'ART REGIONAL DAR SI SAID
Riad Zitoun El Jedid (00 212 44 389 564). Open Wed to Mon, 9am to noon, 3pm to 6pm.
WHERE TO SHOP
SOUKS
At the heart of Marrakech, filling the alleys north of the central square, are the souks, mile after constricted mile of tiny, closet-sized emporia. The sheer number of shops is overwhelming - 100 of them in 100 metres - although many seem compelled to offer exactly the same non-essential wares, particularly babouches (canary-yellow slippers, from Dhs30), jellabas (embroidered gowns, from Dhs100) and etched brass platters the size of manhole covers. Every section of the souk has its own speciality, with alleys devoted to everything from spices and ironwork to the ingredients necessary for casting magic spells. Areas worth seeking out include the Criée Berbère, a knot of dimly lit, roofed passageways that was once a slave market but is now the centre of the carpet trade, and the Kissaria, a ladder of arrow-straight, shoulder-width alleys lined with stallholders specialising in cotton, clothing, kaftans and blankets. The most photogenic is the Souk des Teinturiers, or dyers' souk, rendered dazzling by drying sheafs of coloured wool. The shops nearby major in pottery, lanterns and assorted pieces of metalwork.Souks are generally open daily 9am-7pm and closed Friday mornings. Hotels all but push guides on clients, warning of the dangers of unaccompanied forays into the souks; but you don't really need them. Thanks to government crackdowns, hassle from over-eager salesmen is a thing of the past. And it's almost impossible to get lost: the myriad alleys may be winding but the Medina is not that big and you only need ask a local for help to be set back on the right track. And as for guides securing cheaper prices when haggling, forget it - any savings made are more than gobbled up by their own commissions.
MUSTAPHA BLAOUI
142-144 Bab Doukkala (00 212 44 38 52 40). It's a lazy cliché but no description better fits Mustapha Blaoui than 'an Aladdin's cave'. Hidden behind blank-faced double doors, it's a warehouse piled with floor-to-ceiling irresistibles from candlesticks and lanterns (from Dhs100 and Dhs150 respectively) to pots and bowls and tables and chairs. There's enough ornamentation and inspiration here to furnish a whole series of Changing Rooms. The helpful staff will happily organise shipping overseas.
BELDI
9-11 rue Mouassine, Bab Fteuh (00 212 44 44 10 76). Wealthy Marrakech socialites hoping to turn heads at the next soirée pay a visit to Beldi. A tiny kiosk of a boutique at the entrance to the souks, it is the display space for the work of brothers Toufik and Abdelhafid. Together they tailor seasonal men's and women's collections of Moroccan clothing in the most beautiful colours and fabrics, fashioned with flair and an eye to Western tastes. Beautiful handmade velvet coats lined with silk start from around Dhs1,700, men's shirts in fine linen start from about Dhs500. The brothers expect to have a second shop in the Medina dedicated to their own home-decor products; viewing will be by appointment only.
KULCHI1 Rue Ksour, off Rue Sidi El Yamani, Bab El Ksour (00 212 44 42 91 77). Florence Taranne's Kulchi boutique, near the Medina's Bab El Ksour gate, had its origins in her small shop in the courtyard garden of supper club Le Comptoir (see Nightlife). Her own-label clothing is light and playful, marrying trippy colours and patterning with Moroccan cuts and embroidery. Accessories include raffia shoes from Essaouira, leather shopping bags with khamsa (hand) motifs and T-shirts by Hassan Hajjaj (as worn by staff at hip London restaurant Momo).
SCÈNES DE LIN 70 rue de la Liberté (00 212 44 43 61 08). Shops in the souk specialise in the pretty but useless, so for beautiful and functional things head to the new town of Guéliz, just a 10-minute taxi ride from the central Medina. Owned by Anne-Marie Chaoui, Scènes de Lin deals mainly in linens but also offers striped woven cloth in a huge range of brilliant hues and organdie in delicate pastels. Any combination can be ordered for custom-made curtains, tablecloths or place settings. The shop stocks plenty of other top-quality stuff besides, including luxurious fringed hammam towels, cushions with Fes embroidery, natural essential oils and unusual contemporary lamps.
MINISTRO DEL GUSTO, Derb Azouz 22 El Mouassine, Marrakech (00 212 4 426455; fax: 427936; email: mailto:%20mingusto@cybernet.net.ma). This gallery ("the ministry of taste") is owned by fashion-editor-turned-furniture-designer Alessandra Lippini and her partner, Fabrizio Bizzarri. It has become a key shopping destination in Marrakech. Go for the gorgeous wooden furniture, bas-relief panels and local objets d'art. Lippini often works by special commission from interior designers. Appointments are preferred, but there is always someone there to open the door to a casual visitor.
RIAD TAMSNA Ten minutes by foot from the central square, Djemaa el-Fna (00 212 4 385272) houses a gallery, as well as an emporium selling all sorts of homewares, from bed and bath products to local delicacies and pots of preserves. There is also a restaurant specialising in a Moroccan fusion of Indian, French and Lebanese cuisine. Expensive but very elegant, and a paradigm of what modern Marrakech is all about.
AKKAL/MIA ZIAQuartier Industriel Sidi Ghanem No.322, route de Safi (00 212 44 33 59 38). Committed shopaholics should take a ride out to the Quartier Industriel at Sidi Ghanem. This is the city's warehouse belt, home to several fine factory showrooms. Akkal does modern takes on classic Moroccan shapes in furniture and ceramics, but also sells linens, clothes and pick n' mix dinnerware in the most fantastic colours, from Dhs55. The same showroom also displays Mia Zia wares by Valérie Barkowski (known through her boutiques in Paris, Marseille, Geneva and St Barts) including crisp, white, cotton bed linen with embroidered borders (from Dhs550) and plush fringed towels (from Dhs350). Prices are half what you'd pay in Europe.
LA MEDINA Quartier Industriel Sidi Ghanem No. 24, route de Safi (00 212 44 33 61 32). Also in the Quartier Industriel Sidi Ghanem, La Medina sells ceramics, tableware and furniture originally created for restaurants and hotels.
OUT OF TOWN
Kasbah Agafay – under the same ownership as Kssour Agafay (above), this is a former Sufi shrine, a fort converted to a hotel. Lux boho chic. Great food and pool. 25 mins out of town and you can go just for lunch and spa treatments (with curiously unrelaxing music - Frank Sinatra the last time I was there!).
Kasbah Tamadot is Richard Branson’s place in the High Atlas mountains, like the Kasbah Agafay with knobs on, but a longer drive.
In the summertime take a trip to the sea (with a driver) to Essaouira. There is a FABULOUS new hotel there called Madada Mogador which has a great restaurant apparently - http://www.i-escape.com/hotel.php?hotel_key=MC058. Upmarket of that is L’Heure Bleue (http://www.heure-bleue.com/) which is much more expensive but is a proper riad with pool, hammam etc. The other place everybody goes to there is called Villa Maroc – don’t bother (over priced, over rated, not v clean).
posted by Danielle Nay at 4:32 PM
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First, this blog was indispensable for me on my recent trip and was on my mobile constantly as we kept referring back to it! Well done Dantastic!
On a grimmer note I only wish I'd discovered it before we booked our hotel! We stayed at the 5 Star Atlas Medina Hotel which was pretty good (not quite 5 Stars, but hey) and we enjoyed our stay there immensely up until the check out (in spite of some hit and miss service). When we received the bill we noticed not only was it a little bit more than expected but it listed a hotel restaurant we hadn't used. We questioned it and she produced the signed bills to back up their total invoice. There were four of them. Three in our name and one for the previous guest in our room in the name of and signed by a Mr. Crooks. Even including this spurious bill, it didn't add up to the amount they demanding, 1,195dhm. Our bill should have been 400dhm. Now, it’s not a lot of money (£85 instead of £28) but it’s a hell of a lot of principle!
After a while of getting nowhere I left them the 400dhm that was owed and tried to leave. They ‘prevented’ us leaving, held our cases and finally the manager arrived. He looked flustered and shouted at me, ‘Why don’t you want to pay your bill?’ I explained that I was happy to pay our bill, only this was nothing like our bill. I showed him the only evidence produced but he was just indignant and insisted that there were other bills, but couldn’t produce them. A real 5 Star hotel manager would ask his staff where our signed bills were and if they were not available would take it on the chin, apologise, then scald whoever had not done his job properly. He did none of these just continued to be rude and abrasive before walking away and leaving us with a falsified bill to pay. My companions who are of a calmer disposition than me pulled up the difference and recommended we get out.
To rub salt in the wounds the taxi driver who took us to the airport asked for the fare up front as the porter had tipped him that we try and bilk the fare. Nice.
So, if you’re going to Marrakech, don’t stay at Atlas Medina. If you’ve booked to stay there already, cancel it. If it’s too late to change, then be prepared to stay in 3.5 Star that describes itself incorrectly as a 5 Star, extorts cash from its guests by confiscating their property before being insulting them and leaving a bad impression of a wonderful city.
DON’T STAY AT THE ATLAS MEDINA!
thanks for your information! i will be in morocco this summer...and i'm trying to organize everything...and your post is very usefull! ). I want to visit many countries ... and in particular I want to Things To Do in Marrakech .... I can not wait :-)
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