Barnaby Rogerson writes about Marrakech and what intrepid travelers can enjoy on their first trip to this magical place.
Marrakech is exotic. Marrakech is Moroccan. Marrakech is African. Marrakech is also at the summit of fashion. Its image is indelibly established as an international trademark of style. Ancient red city walls offset by the soaring solidity of the Koutoubia minaret combine with the hum of the covered market and the ceaseless bustle of the Jemma el Fna square - the whole set against an astonishing backdrop: the vast blue on blue of the High Atlas mountains, rising like a fairy tale to seal the southern horizon. Within this walled city there are ancient palaces, glittering royal tombs, hidden courtyard restaurants, mile upon mile of bewildering narrow streets, venerable doorways, arched alleys, sonorous prayer halls, smells and sights to fuel a lifetime of recollection. Wandering through the Souk of the Ironsmiths, the thousands of glittering gilded slippers that line the Souk of the Babouche, the massed tottering piles of killims in La Criée Berbere you realise that life here actually exceeds the imagination.
Marrakech has always been fashionable, though the last few years have seen an extraordinary intensification in its popularity and the simultaneous growth of jewel-like boutique hotels. Initially confined to within the walled medina, these have spread to the garden suburb of the Palmery and now out into the foothills and slopes of the mountains. Nor does a month passes by without society gossip chronicling the news that yet another great designer, international businessman, ex-ambassador, bewitching hostess or man-of-letters has decided to set up home here.
However Marrakech is more than just a fab destination. Firstly it is the great market town of southern Morocco, the natural trading centre for the Berbers of the High Atlas mountains, the desert dwellers, the steppe-land herdsman and the farmers of the lush Haouz oasis. It has also always been a centre of power within Morocco, indeed the very word Morocco is an European corruption for Marrakech. The city it was founded as the advance base for the great cavalary armies that stormed out of the Western Sahara in the 11th century to establish the Almoravid Empire. Side by side with the city of glamour there is the Marrakech of the besuited administrators, a centre for education and the lawcourts.
It is also the city of its citizens, home to 900,000 Marrakechis, skilled craftsmen, heroic mechanics, indeftigable salesmen, cooks, musicians, powerful landlords as well as the destitute and the unemployed. Whether seen through the eyes of a jaded palace-bound expatriate, a visiting country-boy, a package tourist up from the beach resort at Agadir or a European couple on a weekend break, it also a city of pleasure and mystery. A place of entertainment filled with hotels, restaurants, cafes, nightclubs and bars for every possible division of price and class. It is also a city of shops, indeed to my mind only Istanbul can match it as one of the worlds most triumphant shopping places. The covered souk is the heart of Marrakech - a city of shops within the city.
It is above all a city of contrasts - extreme contrasts. It is a place of palaces and poverty, of shops and shepherds, of drought and scented rose-water, of camels and private-jets, of flea markets and opulent bazzars, of boistrous street theatre and quiet domestic interiors. It is also a place that enduces extreme reactions. One moment you curse it at others it tangibly pulses with invigorating energy as if the whole city, every evening, is warming up for a rock concert. In short it is fascinating but exhausting. You can both love it and loathe it, all in the space of one day.
