If Morocco had to be bottled, we would call it Marrakech! Also known as the Pearl of the South or the Red City, it is the gateway to the delights, dreams and colors of Arab-Berber-Muslim culture. Marrakech, this gigantic oasis in the middle of the ramparts delimiting the imperial city, sits proudly facing the largest desert in the world, the Sahara. Its history is intimately linked to that of Morocco, so much so that it gave its name to the country and, in a more anecdotal way, to the great specialty of Morocco: utensils made of leather, i.e. leather goods. Fez was preferred for a long time, but it was not until 1529 and the Saadian dynasty that Marrakech became the undisputed capital of reunified Morocco.
Moroccans will readily confide in you: "Marrakech is our roots". The hustle and bustle of the medina at all hours, the craftsmen busy carving wood in their little stalls, the street vendors mixing with the trendy bars and their European prices all reveal a contrasting reality of the city, between tradition and modernity. Whatever your choice, the climate of Marrakech and its sun falling on its ochre colored facades, its palaces, its princely gastronomy and its Jemaâ el-Fna square, are all reasons to be satisfied with its postcard image...
Who hasn't got in mind, without ever having been there, Marrakech and its Jemaâ el-Fna square in the heart of the city, like an open-air theater, a masterpiece recognized as part of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity in 2001? Sulphurous, it was used by the Alawites as a place of strike: criminals, rebels and thieves were beheaded there and their heads were nailed to a wall for all to see. Hence its current name: the Assembly of the Dead, the Reunion of the Dead, or the Square of Nothingness, depending on the translation... A haven for the underground economy and its unofficial souks, the market was evicted when the new bus station was inaugurated.
The best time to admire the wooden booths and trailers of the street vendors mingling with monkey showers, scholars and other snake charmers, is when the late afternoon comes. The day declines slowly and the acetylene lamps of the greengrocers illuminate little by little the place which empties... We sit down a little playing elbows around a brief wooden table where we enjoy a harira or kefta skewers, facing a sheep's head, delicately placed on the stall! You are now in the heart of Jemaâ el-Fna, where Morocco is lived.
La Médersa Ben Youssef, long regarded as the most resounding Koranic school in the Arab world, does not leave any of the visitors crossing his door to the heavy indifferent bronze beats. Out of the middle of the xivth century thanks to the marinan sultan Abou el-Hassan at the same time as those of Fez, Meknès, Salé and Taza, the médersa Ben Youssef was only a small school of theology at the time. When the Saadian Prince Moulay Abdallah had her reconstructed and embellished around 1565 that his architecture, inspired by marinide and Andalusian, revealed himself in all his majesty. The decoration of the rooms alternates brilliantly between marble, cedar wood, stuc and mosaics.
The inner courtyard, deep and deep rectangle of marble and adorned in the center of a large ablution basin, astonishes its sobriety. Then, in the background, the upper prayer room of a cedar-shaped pyramid made of cedar wood is protected from any possibility of profane gaze coming from the outside through one of Morocco's most beautiful open portals. On the dome, the twenty-four small windows in full hangers, stoned with stucco, offer a striking spectacle when the rays of the sun spawn a path and the mihrab decorated with verses of the Koran sculpted on plaster fascinates believers. You have to see him at least once…
In Marrakech, believers turn to the Koutoubia for their prayers. This masterpiece of Hispano-Moorish art from the 12th century is one of the most important religious buildings in North Africa with its minaret topped by a lantern, itself crowned with four golden balls. Non-Muslims will be satisfied with its exterior, the interior of the mosque serving as both a place of worship and Koranic school. It is at the time of the capture of the city by the Almohads, in 1147, that the sultan Abd el-Moumen, who has for project to make reign a firm doctrine of Islam inside its walls, endows its new capital with a mosque. But confusing speed and haste, the first construction which leaves ground is not in direction of Mecca... Abd el-Moumen had it destroyed on the spot (and punished its architect) to build the one we know today, completed in 1199.
The two works probably coexisted for a few years. Recently, excavations have brought to light the remains of the first Koutoubia and of an ancient palace that can be seen today on the square in front of the present Koutoubia. What a spectacle at sunset when the orange sky mixes with the colors of its minaret...
Botany lovers, come to the Majorelle garden, it will not be platonic, on the contrary! This haven of peace and greenery created in the 1920s by the French painter Jacques Majorelle around his Art Deco studio surprises by its modernity. Botanist and great lover of Moroccan flora, the French artist shaped his botanical garden around his villa, structured around a long central basin, where he planted the rarest species he brought back from his travels around the world: cactus, yucca, bougainvillea, palm trees, philodendrons, etc.
It was in 1937 that the artist had the idea of this ultramarine blue, both intense and clear: Majorelle blue, which he painted the walls of his studio, then the entire garden to make a living painting that he opened to the public in 1947. In 1962, the death of the artist left the garden abandoned and it was the new owners, Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé, who gave it a new lease on life by replanting more than 300 species in large, surrealist and very colorful pots. The former Majorelle workshop is now transformed into a small museum of Berber art, after having long been a museum of Islamic art.
We enter straight into this palace of tales of the Thousand and One Nights built from 1880 by the Grand Vizier Sidi Moussa for his beautiful(bahia), favorite among his twenty-four official concubines. The work "too" well done, the young king Moulay Abdel-Aziz ordered the looting in 1900, jealous of not being at the origin of his unequalled wealth in the whole kingdom ... The local architect, El-Hadj Mohammed ben Makki el-Misfoui, inspired by Andalusian art, built the palace in several stages and finished it after seven years of hard work.
Without a precise order, the 8 hectares of the grand vizier's residence quickly took on the appearance of a real labyrinth. From the hall of honor and the reception room with its ceilings made of Atlas wood and Meknes cedar, to the neighboring court of honor, paved with Carrara marble and surrounded by an ambulatory with painted columns adorned with zelliges, not forgetting the large Moorish garden planted with orange trees, cypresses, daturas and jasmine, no corner escapes its splendor! Let yourself be carried away in this large majestic riad with richly furnished and decorated rooms.
At a time when the heat crushes the city, the Menara gardens appear like an oasis in the middle of the desert. With its majestic basin, this ancient olive grove offers an exquisite walk in the setting sun. Legends abound about the history of the Menara basin: from the storytellers of the Jemaâ el-Fna square who tell you that it overlooks the place where the Almoravid Abu Bekr, founder of the city, buried the fabulous booty collected during his campaigns, to other historians evoking the bones of the mistresses of the cruel sultan Moulay Ismaïl (who was known to have thrown more than one of his favorites into the dark waters of the basin), the reality seems to be everything....), the reality seems quite different.
Dug in the 12th century by the Almohads, its initial purpose was to store rainwater as well as water from the nearby mountains, drained thanks to the system of khettaras. In these calm waters, full of poetry, is reflected the Menara pavilion with its pyramidal roof, a true architectural UFO built by the Saadians in 1866. From the top of its large balcony with balustrade, the view is magnificent.
This museum is housed in the Mnebhi Palace, one of the most beautiful residences built in the imperial city at the end of the 19th century. The house was built on the model of the peristyle house, with rooms arranged around an open-air patio, and woodwork with painted motifs borrowed from European art framing its windows. Inaugurated in 1997, and entirely restored to its original state by the industrialist and collector Omar Benjelloun, its many rooms have been diverted from their initial use. In the entrance courtyard, the small patio and the hammam, you can discover contemporary works while the large patio is devoted to Moroccan heritage (ornaments, costumes, ceramics, coins). If the collections do not unleash the crowds, the visit of this monument is especially worth the glance for the beauty of the decorations which, on 2 000m2, occupy the space. Also impressive is the chandelier in the central patio which, with its false air of a spaceship, weighs 1,200 kg and has a diameter of almost 5 meters. The museum often hosts film screenings, concerts and theatrical performances. For the bibliophiles, a detour by the small bookshop, rather well supplied, will not be of luxury.
The Saadian tombs are where the princes of the Saadian dynasty who ruled Marrakech and Morocco for 125 years rest in peace. In the 16th century, Ahmed the Golden had the task of embellishing the koubba where the remains of his father, Moulay Abdallah, his grandfather, Mohammed ech-Sheikh, founder of the Saadian dynasty, as well as the Marinid sultan Abu el-Hasan, buried here in 1359, are buried. Ahmed el-Mansour, the illustrious architect of the unbelievable El Badi Palace, wanted to make these mausoleums the masterpieces of Marrakech art. Decorated with checkerboards of multicolored zelliges, bordered with arabesques, vaulted with stalactites of stucco and adorned with Italian marble, these tombs are such a feast for the eyes that when Marrakech fell into the hands of the Alaouites in 1654, Sultan Moulay Ismaïl, who was known for razing everything that evoked the splendor of his predecessors (for example, the El Badi Palace), did not dare touch them. He only decided to limit access to a few informed faithful, who could now access it through a back door, located in the mosque of the Kasbah. The existence of the Saadian tombs was not revealed to the public until 1917, when an access corridor was opened next to the mosque to allow non-Muslims to admire, from the surrounding riad, this perfectly preserved architectural complex where 66 members of this illustrious dynasty are buried.
Built at the end of the 19th century to serve as a cocoon for the brother of the grand vizier Ba Ahmed, the grand chamberlain Si Said, Dar Si Said was transformed in 1932 into a museum of fine arts. One goes there for the craftsmanship of Marrakech and the South of Morocco: from the doors of traditional houses made of walnut or cedar wood coming from the villages of the Atlas and the kasbahs of the South to the traditional clothes of the Berbers worn during the wedding ceremonies, not forgetting the kitchen utensils (made of tin) and the city's utensils (made of copper and nickel silver from Marrakech), everything is there! Where your eyes will widen like those of a child, dreamy, it is on the second floor, not for the apartments of Si Said and its Hispano-Moorish decor, but for its carpets covering the floor. The carpets come in as many fabrics and colors as in the souks, which will add to the pleasure of the purchase and the dreaming... Do not miss the sublime interior patio of the museum surrounded by four rooms and flowered with bougainvillea, jasmine and datura. The birds of the area come to find refuge in the 19th century bandstand, located in the center of the garden and transformed into a pool lined with zellij patterns.
