My weekend in Marrakech

Marrakech has always been on my list of places to visit. The city's name has always made me think of some of the worlds far flung colonial outposts like Casablanca and Timbuktu places which are truly exotic. Marrakech is a place where you really feel foreign, although you may think it’s on the other side of the world Marrakech is very accessible. It is about a 2 hour flight from Madrid and cost me 60euro for a return flight with Easyjet, saying that we did leave very early on Friday morning and returned very early on Monday morning. In between was a weekend full of the interesting and exotic. When we got off the plane we decided to brave the bus into the city centre. This worked out fine it cost us 20dirhams around 2 euro and took less than 30minutes.There is also the option of a taxi, if you are going to get a taxi it should cost somewhere between 60 and 80 dirhams (6 and 8 euro) . If you are getting a taxi in Marrakesh be sure to set a price before hand, otherwise you’ll find yourself with a sizable bill. Arguing over prices is part of the culture in Morocco and in Marrakesh in particularly, be prepared to fight for the bargains. After we had arrived at Place Jemaa Al Fna(the city’s main gigantic square)a self imposed guide brought us to our hostel for about 10dirhams (1euro).This was the start of a very interesting weekend.

Marrakech is full of reasonable hotels and hostels that have great rooms at very cheap prices. We stayed at La Casa del Solwhich is located about 5 minutes from Place Jemaa Al Fna. We paid 18euro per night per person for a double room with an en suite bathroom. Breakfast was about 2 euro every morning and was well worth it. It consisted of pancakes, bread, coffee, juice and a selection of Jams. I never left the place feeling hungry after that. If Casa del Sol are booked out they will send you to one of the hostels owned by the same company. I have never stayed at them but I can imagine they are similarly well run. Your stay will also include free Moroccan green tea and shisha and the staff there give you an orientation chat when you arrive to ensure that you know what you're getting yourself into. The only con about Casa del Sol is that our room got extremely hot during the day. Marrakesh itself is an extremely hot place as I’m sure you can imagine. Although our room had a fan it didn’t have air conditioning. This meant some sweaty afternoon naps.

When you wonder around Marrakesh there are times when you’ll feel like you have stepped back in time. The old part of Marrakesh is full of winding labyrinth like streets that are very easy to get lost in. If you do get lost be careful where you take your map out, people will approach you and try to get act as a guide in exchange for a tip. This happened to us on numerous occasions and on one occasion a guide brought us on a wild goose chase and then demanded money and left us more lost than we were before.

Streets are packed and motorbikes, cars and pedestrians are treated the same. It’s not uncommon to have a motorbike whizz past you as your browsing in shops. On more than one occasion I was inches away from being knocked over. During the day the call to prayer starts on 5 different occasions and the people flock to the mosques. If you have never heard or seen this happen before it’s an amazing experience. One mosque starts and then others join in, what they are singing about I have no idea but it does make for an interesting spectacle for a foreigner.

In Place Jemaa al Fna there are snake charmers and guys with monkeys offering to let you take a picture with them for money. There are also stalls selling freshly squeezed orange juice for just 3dirhams (30cent), definitely take advantage of this. At night the food markets open and numerous other stalls and musicians converge on the square. If you have money to spend on decorating a house or buying jewellery Marrakech is the place for you. The streets are full of low cost high quality goods, but as I mentioned above be prepared to bargain.

One of the major pitfalls of Marrakech for me is that it is so packed with tourists. With cheap flights from all over Europe to Marrakech weekenders are becoming more common. This for me took the charm away from the place a little.

You have to be careful what you eat while you are in Marrakech a lot of people having reported getting food poisoning. I was lucky enough to avoid it but I was careful about what I ate and didn’t drink the tap water. I found two great cheap restaurants while I was there. On one of the nights you’re going to want to eat in one of the food stalls in the Place Jemaa al Fna. Don’t worry these are all government controlled so the food here is safe (at least that’s what I was told). When you enter the food stall area you’ll have waiters trying to get you to their stall, on the first night we were duped by one of these and got a mediocre meal at a high price. The waiter also told me that I didn’t leave him a high enough tip even though it’s not customary to tip in Morocco.

The second night a local told us to find stall number 14(all stalls are numbered, they don’t have names). After a little looking around we found it. This was packed with Moroccans and even had a queue of people waiting to get served. We had a place across from a Moroccan family within 10minutes and were been served battered fish of various sorts. This food was good and as well as that it was a real Moroccan experience. It cost us about 6euros for two people to eat there and I definitely recommend it to anyone who is going to Marrakesh in the near future.

On our final night we went to restaurant Jnane Mogador which is away from the square on a roof top. Here we got a three course meal with drinks for 200 dirhams about 20euro. The food here was good quality and the waiter was very friendly and polite, best of all was the view of the night sky. The meal consisted of typical Moroccan local food such as cuscus and Moroccan salad. Although the portions weren’t huge it was enough to satisfy. It’s also worth remembering that very few of the restaurants or hotels serve alcohol so be prepared to drink bottled water or a soft drink with your meal.This may also be a good option for a mid range hotel.Although I didnt get to see the rooms the building itself was exquisite.

If you have money to throw about there are numerous top quality hotels and restaurants in Marrakesh. I was only lucky enough to visit these hotels, hopefully sometime in the future I’ll actually be able to stay in one. As always you have the usual large chain hotels such as the sofitel. However there are a number of other places are not so well known. My favourite was the Dar Rhizlane. This is a hotel that is small and full of character. It’s built in what must be an old mansion house and has a small pool, bar and restaurant out the back. It seemed to me to be the ideal place to unwind for a weekend. The staff was very friendly and more than willing to let us in to look around and enjoy a drink by the pool. A lot of the other hotels seemed to be very large and I couldn’t imagine you receiving the same attention as you would here.

Overall Marrakesh is definitely worth a visit, if you are on a budget it may not be so easy to relax and enjoy the sun but you do get to step into an exotic culture for a weekend. If you have money to spend you may find it difficult to pull yourself away from the pool and 5 star treatments to experience that exotic culture. Either way Marrakesh has a lot to offer and is definitely worth the trip!