Morocco: Marrakech & Essaouira

Marrakech: the Majorelle Garden and the medina

The tour begins at the famous Majorelle Garden, home to the Berber Art Museum, Yves Saint Laurent’s “Love” gallery and his memorial. Saint Laurent was born in Algeria in 1936, but the colours and exoticism of North Africa struck him thirty years later, when he came to Marrakech and, with Pierre Bergé, bought the then-neglected garden of the painter Jacques Majorelle.

Then the Ali ben Youssef mosque, the oldest Muslim religious building in the city, raised in honour of Sidi Youssef ibn Ali Sanhaji, one of the seven patron saints of Marrakech.

And Jemaa el-Fna again, this time by day: zoo, circus, museum, market and orchestra pit all at once. Fresh juices and medicinal herbs are sold, snake charmers and monkey trainers perform, acrobats tumble, instruments wail and old fortune-tellers lay out Tarot cards. The Orient in all its glory.

Marrakech was founded by the Berbers in the 11th century and for a time served as an imperial capital. In the 16th century Sultan Ahmad al-Mansur adorned the city with palaces, mosques and fountains. Monuments of many eras abound, but this is no museum city: as darkness falls, the magic of the East comes alive on every corner.

Essaouira and the argan groves

On the way to the ocean, a stop at the argan groves where goats like to pose in the trees. In the wild, the argan grows only in Morocco and Mexico, and it is here that its fruit yields the precious oil prized in cosmetics and cooking.

Essaouira, a picturesque port known in the Middle Ages as Mogador, is famed for both its natural beauty and its history. In the harbour you watch the traditional methods of building fishing boats and browse the fish market. From the cliff above the port, where Orson Welles shot scenes of “Othello”, a panorama of the town unfolds.

Essaouira is a place of pilgrimage for admirers of Jimi Hendrix and Bob Marley, who lived and worked here in the sixties. Another landmark is the ancient medina with its uniquely designed gate, which once opened the road to the main mosque. This is a wonderfully colourful fishing port whose story goes back to the Phoenicians.