Sublime serenity

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SERENITY

Winston Churchill famously advocated that if travelers had but one day to experience Morocco, that one day should be in Marrakech. This metropolis, used for one thousand years by southern tribes and Berbers socializing and trading, likely began as most desert meeting places, a higgledy-piggledy collection of blanket-tents situated around an oasis.

Several unique architectural creations dominate the ancient stone-walled medina, a vibrant city-centre bounded on the north by sprawling souks offering a multi-coloured cornucopia of leather and sheepskin, wood, jewellery, copper, and textiles. Just inside the city’s southern walls, the intricately carved white columns inside the once-forgotten crepuscular Saadian Tombs contrast with the soaring Koutoubia Minaret, dominating the incomparable Plaza Djemaa el Fna, the “assembly of the dead”.

Without this plaza festooned until not-so-ancient-times with the severed head of traitors and criminals impaled upon stakes, Marrakech would have little to distinguish it. From sunrise to midnight, children and adults, travelers and locals, Moroccans and foreigners meander the haphazard lanes of the Djemaa el Fna. Snake charmers, scribes, soothsayers, herbalists, tooth-pullers (caution: they are not dentists), barbers, musicians, acrobats, and henna ladies anxiously await the next business opportunity. Protect your valuables, don’t accept anything as a “gift,” and keep your hands in your pockets: seizing a wayward hand, the henna ladies immediately start “tattooing”. And how can you walk away with an incomplete design? “Only 50 dirhams.”

By night the centre of this square transforms into a moveable feast. Overarched by wafting smoke curling from dozens of canvas awnings, chefs with white pillbox hats grill fresh vegetables, fish, lamb, beef, and goat. Hundreds of people shop and saunter before choosing a bench table for supper where straw hats and barren heads mingle with baseball caps and hijabs.

When you are inevitably overwhelmed by the hullabaloo and the hucksters, stroll five minutes west to the legendary Hotel La Mamounia, barricaded from reality by 15-foot-tall stone walls and gates staffed with effective security guards to approve your attire and your daypack. The outdoor pool is reserved for guests staying in the hotel but by prior arrangement you can luxuriate in their magnificent tranquility pool. Pamper your body and soul with products created using ancient Moroccan recipes. Explore the authentic hammam, a Moroccan steambath. Let your pores be deep-cleansed by African black-soap, a puzzling but effective concoction of cocoa butter mixed with water filtered through the ashes of tree leaves and bark. Choose perhaps a ghassoul clay mud bath or an argan tree oil massage, chased by refreshing rose or orange water emollient.

Extend the experience to enjoy La Mamounia’s luncheon on the patio. Absorb the cool tranquility of the gardens, ponds, and pavilions of this exclusive hotel. Before long, in spite of your intentions, you will wonder what might be happening outside this sheltered enclave amid the frenetic tumult of the Djemaa el Fna.

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Photos

Entrance Court, La Mamounia
zellij, stained glass, punched tin

Sublime serenity
Serenity spa pool, La Mamounia

La Mamoun
namesake of La Mamounia