How to Avoid the Crowds, in Marrakech

Marrakech has grown ardently in the four years since I’ve set foot here.

It’s too Instagram-able. Too tempting to capture in it’s shades of salmon and sienna. It’s one of those cities that makes me worried for the world, as tourists come to simply consume, buying bags full of cute curios, ceramic bowls and jangling bracelets, shoveling past one another to paw through stacks of rugs and coffee mugs.

They could potentially miss the man in the corner, with his beautiful tea service; mint wafting, newspaper crinkling. Entirely missing the woman in her djellaba, with its fine lines of poetic embroidery.

Listen … the shopping here is epic. The artistry is nothing shy of exceptional. And, you absolutely should come to shop. I did. But there’s so much more to Marrakech, and it’s easy to be tempted by the surface surplus. Ironically, her biggest cultural draws — places like the romantic El Bacha coffee house, the Bahia Palace and the lobby of La Mamounia — are often the most packed.

As the old Medina draws the tourists like the rabid to water, it loses its soul in the high season’s highest hours. The sun is garish and the motorcyclists are frustrated, whizzing past, forcing us all to stumble back against the stucco walls.

If you’re after that lovely cultural connection to a city in travel, Marrakech is probably best in low season. If you are headed there in high season, I’ve got a few suggestions for making the most of it.

HEAD OUT AT DAWN

The number one way to have the city to yourself is to wake up early. As a photographer, I’d do this in every city, but it’s particularly rewarding in the Medina of Marrakech.

Moroccans, as a culture, stay up late. Grandmothers peruse stalls of caftans and pants past 10pm, and children scamper around with soccer balls long beyond dusk. This means in the early hours of the day, the medina is very quiet. Try 7am to 9am, when shop doors remain shuttered and the only sunlight filters down through ripped tarps. You’ll meet street cleaners or joggers out for some cardio, but few others.

As you wander with your coffee, the streets are clean, the Midwesterners are still at breakfast, and there’s that first crack of light and fresh air, cats yawning right alongside you, as everyone stretches to start the day.

Wander anywhere, as Morocco is exceptionally safe; her citizens both gracious and gregarious. Smile and you might be invited in, for tea and Khobz bread right out of the oven.

I captured most of these images on a sunrise photography tour with Omar, of Marrakech Photo Tours. It was fantastic. If I return, I’ll take this tour a second time.

PREPARE PROPERLY

Beyond taking the early morning pilgrimage each day, plan accordingly for dinners and drinks. Reservations, even at simple, no-frills places, make life easier. Skip the popular, long-line rooftops at sunset and find a cool enclave for tea at ground level.

Skip the stuff you are fed on Instagram, find a more local neighborhood and adventure there for a tagine or a tea. What you might lose slightly in flavor you’re definitely going to make up for in authentic connection. I think the trade off is absolutely worth it.

BACHA COFFEE is busted. I mean that. Bus-ted. It has a hundred-strong line a full 15 minutes before they even open the doors. I stayed directly across the street from it, and I couldn’t get in. Furthermore, standing in line for coffee (in Morocco of all places) is absurd.

INSTEAD …

Go over to the BEN SALAH DISTRICT on the northeastern side of the historic Medina. Here there are multiple lovely, highly regarded spots for coffee that open fairly early. This vistas are sepia and dreamy. The people watching in this part of the medina is A-plus.

Then, have dinner in the new city of GUELIZ. It’s a 10 minute, $5 cab from the Medina (if you haggle slightly) and it’s a treasure of the city’s best restaurants. In Gueliz, I like La Cuisine de Mona for Lebanese lunch and L’Ardoise du Marché, for a very local French bistro, for dinner. They have a long wine list, a crammed few candlelit tables and steak cooked to a perfect medium rare. They also allow smoking inside, but this is Marrakech, so it’s somehow charming.

THE BEN YOUSSEF MADRASA is one of the top tourist attractions for architecture. It was an Islamic school in the 1500s, where boys lived and studied the Quran, using wooden tablets to paint the days lesson.

Retiring to tiny, intricately tiled rooms to memorize it all, they would then wash the old lessons away each morning in a central reflection pool, to start again. The crowds here broke my heart, as such a spiritual place now reeks of Disney World, selfie sticks hoisted, girls in too-revealing outfits posing in front of ancient, carved marble script. If you must go, go 15 minutes before 9am opening, to wander in soft light, with lighter crowds. I did not do this, and thus was forced to point my lens up, up, up, as Toledo and Timbuktu elbowed me in the ribcage.

I genuinely hated this moment of my trip.

INSTEAD …

Book a sidecar tour with MARRAKECH INSIDERS. The motorcycles with their little attached sidecars look vintage, but they were actually produced in 2015. You don your helmet and goggles, hop in the side or straddle the leather backseat and you weave through districts like the Kasbah and the Ben Salah, or head out to the palm groves to meet a few camels. I’ve done this twice now in Marrakech, and I would absolutely do it a third time. In this ridiculously romantic town, it’s such a simple joy. You get great information thanks to guides who have tons of personality.

THE BAHIA PALACE was twice as crowded mid-day as the Ben Youssef Madrasa. We skipped it. No comment.

INSTEAD ….

Call ahead to book the tour and take a 20 minute cab out to DOMAINE DU RETRO. It’s a wildly cool vintage car garage with dozens of limited edition classics from the 1920s to the 1970s. The owner is a soft-spoken gentleman who knows the history of each stunningly preserved and restored car, down to stitches in the leather. His lifelong appreciation and family history in vintage collection is really a thing of beauty.

He owns Barbara Hutton’s famous one-of-a-kind Rolls Royce Phantom.

That British green beast of a car once cruised through the streets of Tangier, back when a tourist in Tangier would be kidnapped, extorted and then slapped on the back and given a mint tea. More on Tangier in another post, but here are a remaining few images taken in Marrakech.

For our fanciest meal, we chose the lauded DAR YACOUT. You arrive to an elaborate, historic former house, for sunset drinks on the roof before having dinner inside, as traditional artists play Gnawa music. However, it was all too much. As we drove in, we got stuck in traffic in a busy, local market. People were selling and buying, everything from jeans to brooms. I watched a woman dig for change in her purse, haggling and then paying for a single sweet potato. A kid clung to her dress. Then we enter this gleaming room, full of chandeliers and dapper waiters, to sit at this huge table. It was too loud to converse easily, and the platters arrived, with enough couscous to feed ten people. Every course, we left food on plates because it was too much. I felt guilty and gross at the close of it.

INSTEAD …

I’d book a table at KSAR ESSAOUSSAN It’s this spot inside the Medina that Chris discovered on our first trip. We returned to find the same charms. Gorgeous old space, friendly reception and enormous lounge chairs and petite couches around iron tables. Soft music. Candlelight and a $35 prix fixe menu, with a trio of Moroccan salads to start, then a tagine and a cute dessert of fresh pastries and pastilla. You can’t top it.

I’m hardly an expert on the city of Marrakech, but my nine days there made me feel at home, and I’m here if you have questions, need riad recommendations or are seeking shopping advice. My credit card arrived home melted from over use.