Jemaa El Fna Highlights

Jemaa El Fna

The Marrakech medina’s central square means “Assembly of the Dead”, a reference to a time when the heads of executed criminals would be displayed here on spikes. Although nothing as gruesome is on view today, the square is still populated with some extraordinary sights such as snake charmers, monkey trainers and colourfully-costumed water sellers. In spite of government efforts to sanitize Jemaa El Fna with neat paving and ornamental barrows, the place remains endearingly chaotic.

Top 10 Features:

• Orange-Juice Stalls


• Snake Charmers


• Café de France


• Tooth Pullers


• Herbalists


• Porters


• Monkey Trainers


• Calèches


• Water Sellers


• Fortune Tellers

Orange-Juice Stalls

The The first to appear on square every morning are these sellers of freshly-squeez­ed orange juice. They work in brightly painted iron barrows fringing the square. Dried fruit and nuts stall It is worth paying repeated visits at different times of the day, but in summer months the square goes uncharacteristically quiet during the hottest part of the afternoon. Argana and the Terrasses de l’Alhambra are good lunch spots and both offer upper terrace seating overlooking the square.

Snake Charmers

The heat makes the snakes unresponsive so the charmers work on tourists, cajoling them into draping the lethargic reptiles over their shoulders for a photograph.

Café de France places

There are several to sit and watch the incessant entertainment of the square over coffee but the raffish air of the Café de France (left) lends it an added appeal and is a favourite with tourists and locals alike.

ToothPullers

These self-proclaimed “dentists” sit behind wooden trays filled with loose teeth (below) ready to aid cash-poor locals with aching dentures.

Herbalists

These stand as testimony to the Moroccan belief in natural remedies. Compounds of ground roots, dried herbs and even desiccated animal parts are used for everything, from curing head colds to warding off the evil eye.

Porters

banned from crossing Jemaa El Fna, With cars access to many of the hotels in the surrounding alleys is provided by the ubiquitous porter (carroser), who carries your luggage on a wheeled barrow and transports it to your lodgings for a small tip.

Monkey Trainers

Small monkeys dressed in bright tunics are brought to the square by their keepers to caper and dance for tossed coins.

Calèches

Hop into one drawn carriages (below), parked along the square’s west side. For a fee – you may need to bargain down from the driver’s inflated price – you can take a circuit of the city walls, or almost anywhere you care to go.

An Unplanned Masterpiece

Jemaa El Fna is considered to be a “Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity” according to the UNESCO. This is an international list that includes pieces of intangible culture such as song cycles, theatrical traditions and sacred spaces. Inclusion in the list is intended to raise awareness and preserve something unique and irreplaceable; Jemaa El Fna certainly qualifies.

Water Sellers 

Known by the locals as gerrab, the water sellers roam the square in colourful costume and tassel-fringed hats, ringing copper bells to announce their arrival (centre). The brass cups are meant exclusively for the Muslims while the white-metal cups are for the thirsty people from all other religions. For dining and shopping options in this area.

Fortune Tellers

Throughout the day, impossibly wrinkled, elderly women squat beneath umbrellas with packs of Tarot cards to hold forth on the fortunes of the people who drop by for a reading.

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Marrakech Highlights Intro

Marrakech Highlights

An oasis in every sense of the word, Marrakech was once a beacon for the trading caravans that had driven north through the desert and navigated over the often snow-capped Atlas Mountains. Marrakech may be Morocco’s third most important city after Rabat and Casablanca, but its fabulous palaces and lush palm groves exercise a powerful hold over tourists. It has always been the place where sub-Saharan Africa meets Arab North Africa, and, even today, this market town located on the edge of
nowhere remains a compellingly exotic port of call.


Jemaaa El Fna

This is a vast plaza at the heart of the medina (the old walled city), as old as Marrakech itself.
The site of parades and executions in the past, modern city life is centered around the Jemaa El
Fna 


The Night Market
By night, Jemaa El Fna transforms into a circus, theatre and restaurant, with itinerant
musicians and entertainers drawing excitable crowds

Koutoubia Mosque

Marrakech’s landmark monument boasts a tower that dominates the skyline
for miles around. Like most mosques in Morocco, it is closed to non-Muslims but
it’s an impressive sight nonetheless

Souks
out in the narrow streets Laid to the north of central Jemaa El Fna are a dizzying array of souks, or bazaars. Different areas specialize in their own specific wares, selling anything from carpets, lanterns and slippers,
to ingredients for magic spells


City Walls and Gatesold city

is Marrakech’s medina, or wrapped around by several miles of reddish-pink, dried mud walls, punctuated
by nearly 20 gates. Having proved ineffective against attackers throughout history, the walls are more ornamental
than functional

Saadian tombs

A tranquil garden hidden at the end of the narrowest of meandering passageways shelters the royal
tombs of one of Morocco’s ruling dynasties. They were shrouded from the world till the 1920s

Ben Youssef

Behind a typically blank Marrakech façade hides what is arguably the city’s finest building. This
ancient religious school boasts exquisite decorative detail

Baadi Palace

The ruins of this once fabled palace provide a picturesque setting for nesting storks – and a
salutary warning from history against extravagance

Majorelle Gardens

Jacques Majorelle, a French artist who came to Marrakech to recuperate, gifted
this beautiful garden to the city. It is now owned by French couturier, Yves Saint-
Laurent who has opened it to the public

Mamounia Hotel hotels worldwide

A grande dame among the Mamounia has been providing hospitality to the visiting rich and famous for almost a century

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Visit Marrakech

From the moment you arrive in Marrakech, you’ll get the distinct feeling you’ve left something behind – a toothbrush or socks, maybe? But no, what you’ll be missing in Marrakech is predictability and all sense of direction. Never mind: you’re better off without them here. 

Marrakech is too packed with mind-boggling distractions and labyrinthine alleyways to adhere to boring linear logic. If you did have a destination, you’d only be waylaid by snake charmers, out-of-control donkey carts, trendy silver leather poufs and ancient Berber cures for everything from relationships to rent.

Start at the action-packed Djemaa el-Fna, and if you can tear yourself away from the castanet-clanging water-sellers and turbaned potion-sellers, head into Marrakech’s maze of covered market streets. Marrakesh’s souqs are like a cold riad plunge pool on a scorching July day: nothing quite prepares you for the shock. Dive in headfirst at any street headed north off the Djemaa el-Fna, and with any luck you’ll emerge exhilarated and triumphant some hours later, carpet in tow.

While you’re in the heart of the Medina, you may come upon a palace museum, stay in a riad guest-house, and venture a dish of piping-hot snails. But it’s worth leaving the charms of the old city occasionally for dinner, drinks, art galleries and fixed-price boutique shopping in the ville nouvelle (the new town). Go with the flow, and become an honorary Marrakchi bahja (joyous one).

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