Morocco Day 10: Marrakesh

​Today, our last day in Morocco, we explored the Old City of Marrakesh.  We spent a lot of time touring through the Souk (market), which was nice because it is a lot less crowded on a Sunday.

We started by touring the Bahia Palace, a beautiful 17th century Palace with especially fine mosaic, wood and stucco work.  

Despite it being Sunday, it was already quite crowded by the time we left around 10, and quite hot.  Some of our group headed home after the palace. Ruth was among them, although very sorry to have missed the souk and the secret garden, she spent a very relaxing time in the cool comfort of the hotel, and felt a lot better with her decision. 

Next the rest of the group headed into the market.  We passed hundreds of little shops with traditional and not so traditional wares.  Because the Medina is a UNESCO site, all vendors have to sell authentic hand made or traditionally made articles.  That doesn’t mean it is all necessarily stuff you want - but there is a LOT of variety - spices, leather, bronze, baskets, carpets, woodwork, traditional clothes, artwork, jewelry, silver, pottery, dates and olives, etc. etc. We walked a long time and saw a lot of beautiful things, but for the most part just kept walking.

Eventually we came to a place known as the secret garden.  It was a large riad (traditional home around a garden) built in the 17th century, and inhabited until 1913, when it was abandoned.  In 2014, an archaeological restoration project began to bring it to its past glory.  It was a lovely place to rest, have a drink and regroup.

Our next stop was a carpet shop, of course.  Although they were beautiful, we were not tempted.

From there we visited a few more parts of the market and the central square.  Then we were free for the afternoon.  Cheryl had a delicious fruit juice, and went to the silver shops, then took a tuk-tuk back to the hotel.

We spent the afternoon packing and preparing for our next trip.  Then we went out for a Farewell dinner with our excellent travel companions at the Red House, a beautiful restored French villa.  The setting was lovely!