Marrakech

We just got back and our trip to Morocco was awesome. We started in Marrakech, one of the most busiest cities in Morocco. The main tourist attractions of Marrakech are situated in medina which is so called old town surrounded by medieval wall.

I believed that Marrakech was all about medina and the city seemed to be very old-fashioned and undeveloped. Later I discovered there is much more of Marrakech outside the wall where buildings look very different and modern. But most of the time we hanged out in medina.

Hostels in Morocco deserve a special attention cause they aren't just like any other hostels we are used to but rather are riads. The definition of riad is that it's a traditional Moroccan house or palace with an interior garden or courtyard. One amusing thing is that for a very affordable (sometimes really cheap) price you could stay in a what used to be palace. We did it 2 times.

Our first hostel-riad was not as good looking as the second one, but it had an amazing atmosphere because of its amazing hosts. I heard that Moroccans were famous for their hospitality and 2 guys who ran the hostel even exceeded my expectations. They were amazing. They taught us how to cook cous-cous, kept making for us fresh Moroccan sweet mint tea, sang songs and played drums in the evenings. We didn't need to look for any entertainment in Marrakech, it was all in our hostel.

Marrakech medina is very colorful place, full of souks (markets) selling leather goods, spices, food and all other imaginable things. The thing that pleasantly surprised me about Marrakech, and Morocco in general, is that most of the people were wearing traditional cloths. So all those souks with colorful goods and Moroccans in national cloths walking by or selling goods were just perfect for taking beautiful pictures, however it wasn't always that easy. Moroccans don't like to be on the picture. Whenever they would spot me with my camera they would either walk away or cover their face. Once I even received quite an aggressive remark to stop using my camera. But nevertheless I still used it quite a lot and have probably around 100 pictures of Marrakech souks.




There is a huge square in the middle of medina called Jemaa el-Fnaa. It's the biggest square in African continent and is very lively all day and night long. I loved passing through it because every 10 meters you could buy a big glass of an absolutely divine fresh orange juice. Price for the juice was fixed in every places of the square (just 0.40 Euro per glass) with no need to bargain. We basically drank it whenever we were passing by the square.