Advertisement
Published: February 5th 2007
Edit Blog Post
DAY 1
Stayed awake waiting for 4:30am so I could take a cab to Victoria Station to catch the Gatwick Express to Gatwick to meet Silvia and Roland and check in.
I was really hoping to catch up on some sleep on the plane but I couldn’t get comfortable! At one point I started feeling dizzy and when I got to the back of the plane to use the toilet I fainted. But it wasn’t anything serious. I was soon back on my feet! When we landed in Marrakesh, I was so excited about being there, I didn’t even think of what happened on the flight. We lined up at Passport control which took ages, so we kept swapping lines to see which one would go first.
We changed some money at arrivals and found the guy picking us up to take us to our Riad, called Dar Sara. When we got out the car, we had to walk through a little street with markets and stalls and then turn into more tiny streets and all I kept thinking was how will we ever find our way out or back in again!!! Anyway, the Riad was absolutely amazing!!! We
couldn’t believe it was a 2* hotel. The staff were really friendly and helpful and if this is what we were getting now, then you can imagine how much better it was in a 5* Riad or Hotel!!!
We got settled in and then made our way towards Djemma Ell Fena. It was so big!!! There were loads of crowds, looking at snake charmers, fortune tellers, henna artists, story tellers, little boys boxing!!! The souks were very busy also selling bags, shoes, pots, carpets and everything else. A lot of “please come into my shop”, but we were prepared and just smiled and kept walking on. We had lunch at Argana Restaurant and we saw a few people that were on our flight that morning! After lunch we were pretty tired so we decided to go back to the Riad and have a siesta. It ended up being a long siesta because we didn’t get up till 9pm!!! Well, we did wake up and fly early in the morning!!!
That evening we decided to try out Dar Sara’s recommended restaurant Dar Zjeilli. On our way, we had a little trouble finding the place and a young guy caught
on and offered to walk us to the restaurant. We said we didn’t need him too, but he walked with us anyway. We walked through little streets again, taking a lot of turning’s and even passed a crowd of men drumming by a fire and singing. When we arrived at the restaurant the guy wanted money for walking, so we offered 20 dirhams but he wasn’t happy with that and made a fuss. We started walking away because he was fussing too much but in the end he decided to take it.
Anyway when we walked into the restaurant, it was amazing! From the details in the ceiling to the layout on the floor. When we got the menu’s it only had 3 choices and these were ranging from 350 to 450 dirhams. It was expensive, but we had walked all that way so we stayed. We had about 6 courses, so in the end we didn’t feel too bad about paying that much. We were so stuffed!!! We took a cab back because the guy at the door insisted on it saying it would be dangerous to walk at that time!!! I was just happy to get into
my bed and catch up on some sleep from the night before.
DAY 2
Woke up quite late in the morning so we thought we missed breakfast but luckily they had pancakes and bread with spreads, coffee and freshly squeezed orange juice!!! It was excellent!!! We decided to extend our stay there to the full 5 nights since we decided not to do any overnight excursions! Plus it was a good Riad so no reason to change!!!
This time we walked the opposite direction from Ell Fena towards Gueliz. We stopped off at Ensemble Artisanale where there were a lot of small stalls and shops. At one point the men went out to pray. It was interesting watching them! We stopped off to eat lunch and wrote out our postcards. Roland went that little bit further and drew brilliant pictures on them! They wrote me one out between them, but they didn’t show me, so I am looking forward to seeing it when I get home.
We took a cab to Jardin Marjorelle. The gardens were beautiful and the Indigo house was fantastic!!! The colours and details went so well together and the green garden &
trees complimented the house. It was raining when we were there, but I can imagine that in the summer it would look even more beautiful. There was also a Museum for Islamic Arts which were collected by Jacques Marjorelle, who is also the man who built the house.
We took a cab to Djemma and the square was really busy! We walked around to find Sahara Expeditions to book our trips to Atlas Mountains. We decide to go on two separate trips, one to Casades de Ouzard Waterfalls and then the other to Ourika Valley. When we were back in the market, Roland and I tried some snails, which I hate to say was pretty yummy! I stopped after a while because I could see the snails faces and I felt too guilty to continue. We walked past the market food stalls selling everything from meat & seafood to vegetables & boiled eggs in bread!!! The entertainment was out in full force.
That night we eat at Chez Chegrouni, which was recommended by the Lonely Planet Guide! There were a lot of tourists there also, so we guessed that most of those people had lonely planet guide books
or similar! I have to say that the food I ate, which cost me around 60dirhams, was actually much better then Dar Zjeilli which we paid over 400 dirhams each! I recommend this restaurant to anyone.
(more to follow in Part 2)
Advertisement
Tot: 0.052s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 11; qc: 23; dbt: 0.0211s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Ate Roz
non-member comment
Colourful...
Morocco looks absolutely beautiful...It's well colourful over there...People look really friendly too...Very impressed with your photography Ading Ko...