When we first arrived at our Riad, our host, Massimo, sat down with us & together we studied his very detailed map of the Medina & souk area in which we are staying. He showed us where to go at certain times of the day & where to stay away from altogether! After a good night's sleep, we felt confident to set out on our own & the first destination was Ben Youssef Medersa. Along the 40 minute walk to get there we saw THE most wonderful ceramics, leatherwork, wrought iron, jewellery, herb & spice sellers. Right about now you're wondering where the pictures are? Well....I didn't take any! Our attention had to be fully on where we were going & which direction the motorbikes & cyclists were travelling as they whizzed past us in the narrow walkways! Taking photos just wasn't an option...
...until we got into the Medersa, where my camera got lots of exercise. This was once a Koranic school that housed 900 students at a time, over a period of 400 years. This photo shows Jeff looking through the door from inside one of the cells. They are dark & tiny inside & we wondered how many were crammed into that small space.
The decorative work is just stunning; pattern upon pattern upon pattern! A difference from The Alhambra in Granada, was the presence of more carved cedar wood.
We enjoyed going into the upstairs galleries that look down onto the stunning courtyard & using the shaped windows for more interesting photographic framing!!
Just down the road a bit was the Musee de Marrakech, which is housed in a former Palace. The building was almost derelict with many of its stunning features ruined, so to see the before & after photos & then step into the reality...was a serious WOW moment. This main hall is presided over by the HUGEST metal lantern I have ever seen!
In side rooms around this courtyard were small displays of different aspects of the life & history of those living in Marrakech. I was particularly interested in the embroidery section...a close up of one stunning piece is above.
Pattern continued to reign supreme, with more stunning lanterns in the foreground to exquisitely painted ceilings. I am SO grateful to have a digital camera!
After a few slight deviations off track, we managed to find our way back to our Riad for a little freshen up before heading out again. This time in search of the Palais el Badi. This Palace was once considered to be one of the wonders of the Muslim world. It was a huge & beautiful Palace, made of the same pink pise walls as the neighbouring Medina & decorated with Italian marble, Irish granite, Indian onyx & gold leaf. It was a place of festivity, where foreign ambassadors would be entertained. Now it is little more than ruins & ruled over by nesting storks.
This view from up on what remains of the first level, gives a glimpse of what it might have been once!!
After a bit of hit & miss we eventually found our way to the Saadian tombs, allegedly some of the finest examples of Islamic architecture in Morocco, but after seeing the Medersa in the morning...I find it hard to agree. These tombs are a fairly recent re-discovery. Within the complex is the tomb of
Ahmed el-Mansour who was the one who built the ruined Palace above. The Sultan who took over power from him sought to erase all traces of his predecessor, so he not only destroyed most of the Palace, but had the tombs hidden. It wasn't until 1917 that a plane was flying over Marrakech (must have been pretty low) spotted them &...voila!
Following the tomb visit, we felt the need to head back 'home' again, passing as we did so, this beautiful Kasbah Mosque with it's green tile work. We followed the old Medina walls for a while & it was a particularly unpleasant experience, clearly for CENTURIES local men had been pissing up against it. The smell of male urine is not unusual in a lot of these old places, but OH BOY....seriously overwhelming here! It was a pleasure to get back to a Riad scented with jasmine & cleanliness!!!!
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