Negotiating the streets of Marrakech’s Medina needs a great deal of patience, loads, and the ability to stay perfectly alert – the people try to sell you things, forcefully, but with a smile. They’ll make friends with you over the days but only to sell.
They will also follow you, ask you where you’re going, try to show you how to get there, even if you know or dont want the help they’ll follow you then ask for money when you get there, if they do and you cant get rid of them then barter to pay how much your going to give them to get rid of them as they will ask for a high price, remember 200 Dirham is 20 Euros.
People, motorbikes, cats, donkeys, stalls and sellers; a cacophony of sights and sounds that can be overwhelming to the uninitiated and you just have to watch all around you, some of the motorbikes don’t stop! and down tiny streets..
Sites and People in Morocco
Jemaa el-Fnaa. The Jemaa el-Fnaa is Marrakech’s main square and the best, busy, annoying but cool. You can get decent, pushy street food for cheap (just check the menu when they charge you.)
You can see snake charmers – be prepared to pay for a photo, barter, don’t give them more than 50 Dirham, they’ll want 200, like everywhere else, but they are very pushy and will try to stick a cobra round your neck!
There’s also a fair bit of animal cruelty so be aware.
Restaurants – tagine, tagine or tagine? all they have is tagine and couscous. Make sure you try it all, can be worth it but can be done in a few days and gets a bit same same.
There’s some good palaces and sights to see, take photos of, look around. Worth doing.
There are two royal palaces in Marrakech, one that was the home of previous kings and one of the current. Both are operational.
The older palace was a 12th-century fortress (above, pretty cool).
Got these dudes hanging out there also.
Tours in Morocco
Definitely book a tour as well, you can find them on the street but I recommend from your Riad, they can get you home if the tour bus forgets to pick you up and and also will pick you up from your Riad, its all windy small streets in the old town and there’s nothing worse than trying to find your way around them to get to the pick up point.
Tour companies: 10 Best Marrakech Tour Operators & Travel Companies – Saudi Arabia Tours
At this stop I got swamped by locals trying to sell me nuts they’d picked and crystals they’d dug up – try not to smoke near them ever, I had to crash a load out, just felt bad, no shop for miles..
The markets in Ait-Ben-Haddou are a tiny bit more relaxed but a lot ore expensive and haggling is tough, but the small streets inside the town are beautiful with colour and old buildings.
I would recommend booking a tour to the Sahara although its a long way from Marrakesh, around an 11 hour drive. I did it on a 2 day tour.
On the road from Marrakesh to Essaouira you should be able to find a load of trees off just off the road full of goats, quite a strange site. Apparently they go in the trees because they like the nuts it grows and happen to be good climbers although they have hooves..
Travel War 