Marrakech

Our trip to Marrakech started at 9:30 with a 4 hour drive to Milano airport and then a 5:40pm flight arriving late in the evening.  Just getting through the passport control was a mission in tolerance of queues!  We had all been a bit hungry on the plan so scoffed up large.  However, on arriving at the lovely Riad (like a guest house but usually developed out of a large wealthy family home) we were greeted with a full meal put on for us.  We felt we couldn’t be rude and not eat it!  The food was a delicious mix of local fare including beautifully cooked lamb in a tagine (of course!).

We woke on our first morning to hear that another of Steve’s best friends had died during the night of cancer.  Steve has had a particularly rough time of it on this trip –to put it mildly!  Breakfast was an interesting mix of crepes (catering to the French influence), yoghurt, pancakes and roti’s with jams and honey and a few shared tears.

Catherine haggling over price

We headed for the Souk (local markets) via the inevitable round of coffees for the troops.  A local guided us into the bowels of the Souk hijacked us.  It was incredible with stalls of leather goods, trinkets, carpets, lamps, silks and spices.  The streets were specifically designed so that raiders would get lost.  The theory worked for us tourists too.  We probably walked an extra hour longer than we needed to as we were completely lost.  We stopped and had a coffee while we tried to work out where we were.  French is the second language here behind Berber and Arabic (Berber being the language of the locals before the Arabs arrived).  Thankfully David managed to interpret Gare Routiere on the map as a bus station we had just walked past.  Having got our bearings we headed back to the Riad for a much-earned rest and beer.

The spice markets were amazing.

One of the many amazing doors

A typical walk way / street

Market for the locals i.e. there weren't many (if any) tourists here

Street parking - loved the poor donkey tied up too.

Another of the walkway/streets

Anyone want a Tagine???

Motorbike workshop

Another spice shop

Wednesday we headed for the Ourika Valley at the foot of the Atlas Mountains.  We stayed for one night at a lovely placed called Kasbah Bab Ourika only 45 minutes from the crazy hubbub of the Medina (the is the name of the city of Marrakech inside the fortress wall).  

View of the Atlas mountains from our room

Our room had flowers on EVERYTHING :-)  It was lovely.

The gardens

Dinner in the evening

Tea and coffee on our arrival

This lady was lovely.  She laughed when Catherine tried to describe to her that she felt tired like the donkey looked with its load on its back.

We had a lovely peaceful and restful time here.  We meet the two men who built the place, one French and the other English who’s name was Steven Skinner.  David got talking to him and then met his father James who at 82 is still as sharp as a tack and working on papers on the global creation of wealth and why it should be driven by public policy rather than private.  It was almost with some reluctance that we departed on Thursday at lunch time to head back to our nice Riad. 

Last dinner from the Tagine

On our last day in Marrakech was spend with a walk into the main square in the morning, a lazy afternoon catching up on rest and then an early dinner out at the same main square were we watch the area just come alive with gambling boards, snake charmers (seriously!), men with monkeys (and you have to pay for photos),  and many amazing food stalls.  The best was the freshly squeezed orange juice.

This market seriously comes alive at dusk.  The smoke is from the cooking in the food stalls our of shot to the right,

A typical food stall - this time with snails......

The main mosque that is the centre of town