Day 1 - Friday
After an early start (due to the early flight) we arrived in Marrakech and checked into our hotel just in time to see Kate making her way to the abbey. We watched Wills and Kate get married, while admiring her beautiful dress and keeping our eyes peeled for Posh and Becks in the congregation. We saw them.
Feeling a bit tired and unsure where to start we spotted the the tourist bus going by as we had lunch in the hotel cafe. After lunch we hopped on the bus and got a 48 hr ticket for about £15. Bargain.
The bus does 2 tours - the historique tour and the oasis tour- we did both.
The historique tour took us along Mohammed vi avenue (which is the longest avenue at about 5km) to the Jardin la Menara. At the side of the road there are groups of camels awaiting eager tourists.
After swinging by the Marrakech casino the tour reached the pink city walls and headed down towards the Koutoubia Mosque. We briefly passed the Jemaa El Fna square which still looked very busy despite the recent attack.
We passed the Royal Palace where I had to remember not to take a picture as it is strictly forbidden!
We swapped buses for the oasis tour which took us up towards the Jardin Marjorelle and the Palmarie. Much more deserty up this way and lots more camels. Apparently this is also the Beverley Hills of Marrakech so there were some very fancy cribs!
Having got our bearings a bit we felt like we had more of a plan for the rest of the trip.
Back to the hotel, The Mogador Opera, for a delicious tagine before falling into bed.
Day 2 - Saturday
Woke up really early feeling slightly confused about what the actual time was. What with Easyjet telling us to put our watches back and the joker on reception messing with our heads and changing the clocks, just for laughs, we ended up having breakfast at what we thought was 9am but was actually 10am. Which explains why there wasn't a lot left (breakfast finished at 10.30am).
After getting ourselves sorted with the right time we headed off to the Koutoubia Mosque (on our little bus).
A brief wander around the outside of the mosque, as non Muslims are not allowed in, confirmed that there wasn't a lot more to see there. We did the death run across the road and made our way towards the Jemaa El Fna square.
Part of the square was condoned off and we were told it was because the King was coming (and we don't mean Elvis) to see the damage.
Venturing into the main square I turned around to find mum being accosted by a monkey. It's a good job the monkey understood French as a forceful 'non merci' from mum sent him back to his owner. Can't leave her alone for a minute!
After the monkey incident we managed to avoid the snakes and bravely carried on towards the souks.
You have to keep on your toes to avoid being mown down by all the mopeds, bicycles and donkey carts who speed through the narrow alleyways.
The souks sell a mixture of traditional wares, such as silver, lanterns, leather, shoes, scarves, spices and olives. By contrast we also came across many stalls selling the usual market trader goods you'd get back home, such as t-shirts, handbags and Calvin Klein underwear.
The men and women of the mountains, in traditional costume, had also come down to sell their goods and entertain the crowds with their music.
Both the square and the souks are full of hustle and bustle so we stopped for a drink and a rest at the Koutoubia cafe where we could sit back and watch the world go by.
This is where you can really take in just how chaotic the roads are in Marrakech. There are all sorts of vehicles from brand new audi's, mopeds and 3 wheeled trucks to donkey carts, horse and carriages and even mobility scooters. Among all this there are policemen blowing their whistles while directing the traffic as well as hundreds of people dodging in and out trying to cross the road.
Back on the bus we hopped off again at Place du 16 Novembre and found a nice little cafe for lunch. This seemed to be an upmarket area with high street shops and fancy looking apartments. It felt a little bit calmer here....until the traffic policeman started frantically blowing his whistle. We stood up for a better view and waited for the road to be cleared. Shortly after a number of black cars sped by followed by a few motorcycle outriders, then a few more cars, then the official car with flag on the front and King inside, flanked by 3-4 further cars also sped by. And they were literally speeding along. There was a round of applause from onlookers and quite a few more entourage cars before the traffic started moving again. We'd seen the King of Morocco....we'll his cars dust trail anyway!
Over the road we spotted a mini souk so off we wandered only to emerge 15 minutes later clutching some pashminas. It was a good shop Dale.
After all the excitement we headed back to the hotel for a quick rest before dinner.
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