Germany and Beyond: Morocco: Marrakech

With Fes still being relatively new to the tourist scene, it felt as though Marrakech welcomed us with open arms. There were tourists everywhere, which was often a rare sight in Fes. The main square, Jemaa el-Fnaa while famous in its own right is a gateway to the Medina.

The Koutoubia Mosque visible from the Jemaa el-Fnaa

Crossing the road to get to the Jemaa el-Fnaa was chaos. You have to just start walking into the traffic and let the cars, buses and motorcycles negotiate a path around you. Thankfully many people were doing the same, so we'd usually just join the people bus and edge our way across the oncoming traffic.

Drinking coffee and watching the antics of local street performers in the Jemaa el-Fnaa

The square gets busy in the afternoon as make-shift restaurants set up a maze of marquis and fight for customers - as do many of the street performers including snake charmers, acrobats, magicians, mystics, musicians, monkey trainers, herb sellers, story-tellers, and entertainers in medieval dress.

These restaurants set up in the afternoon and are gone by morning.

Many of these restaurants sell pretty much the same thing (admitted by the guy haggling us, 'come on, they're all the same anyway.'), so rather than being picky we just went to the first place that looked decent. It's customary to be given a starter you didn't ask for too. We didn't mind, the food was cheap, and the starter was pretty good. We ordered a Tajine and cous-cous while cats weaved in and out from the surrounding tables trying their luck for a morsel of food.

A more local market place just inside the Medina. There were loads of baby turtles (or tortoises) for sale - I hope they don't eat them.

The Medina in Marrakech is by no means as overwhelming as the Fes Medina. It's easier to navigate, flatter and doesn't compete in size against Fes's 9000 streets. You can enter shops without being hassled, some places even had prices! We regained some confidence after a disheartening experience of negotiating in Fes and gave it another go in Marrakech. We were successful - and we weren't led down any dingy alley ways to a cousin's uncle's bigger shop.

How do they do this? Maybe we should have asked for a scoop of paprika just to mess with their display.

Dumping ground in the heart of the Medina.

All this rubbish was being dumped in the heart of the Medina. There were shops just opposite and next to the dump heap. The cats had made it their home.