INDEX travel
My
enough to melt the glue binding my copy of Hideous Kinky so all the pages fell out. So, with hindsight, maybe high summer isn’t the best time to visit – but I was determined to head there in the month of my fortieth birthday.
H
Morocco’s second-largest city is just over a three-hour flight away from the UK. Marrakesh is made up of the Old Town or Medina, circled by the reddish- pink city wall, and nearby Gueliz, the New Town, both within a 45-minute drive of the foothills of the Atlas mountains. We stayed in a traditional Moroccan guesthouse, or Riad, in the Medina, which is made up of a maze of alleyways too
20
OWHOTWAS MARRAKESH when I visited in July? Hot
Moroccans do interior design spectacularly well
narrow for cars. Here, pedestrians dodge the mopeds and donkeys laden with rubble, children play around women sitting on doorsteps, men push heavy trolleys and toil in workshops, and dusty kittens curl up in shop doorways. The plain, salmon-pink façades of the low-rise, cube-shaped buildings have intriguing carved wooden doors, sized according to the grandeur of the interior. We arrived at Riad Samarkand (
www.riadsamarkand.com – it’s owned and was renovated by a Parisian couturier), entered a
Marrakesh
What better place to go for some pure self- indulgence than the über-hip Moroccan city, says Sue Wilsher
tranquil courtyard with banana trees and plunge pool and sighed with relief – the accommodation was beautiful. The Moroccans do interior design spectacularly well: carved plaster and wooden fretwork, mother of pearl inlays, enchanting lanterns, panelled ceilings and impossibly long draped curtains. We took two of the five suites and had the place to ourselves for the first two days, enjoying wonderful breakfasts of fruit, cake and coffee on the roof terrace. Cyril, the manager, was laid- back and helpful, walking us to restaurants to save us the hassle of getting lost in the labyrinth and arranging for a guide to show us around. One of us mentioned shopping, so the majority of our tour was spent in the souk – the largest market in
Morocco, made up of over 1,400 tiny shops and divided into specialised areas selling lanterns, spices, copper, clothing and food, and with both goods and workshops on display. It was humbling to see men and boys working in the searing heat, punching tiny holes into metal
www.indexmagazine.co.uk
Photos: Sue Wilsher
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