Having thoroughly enjoyed our day yesterday, we spent the morning lounging by the pool again :-). This allowed us to prepare ourselves fully for the busy afternoon we had prepared. In the afternoon we headed into the Medina (the walled city) for a brief tour of the Ali Ben Youssef Medersa, which was once a very popular school for scholars from across the North African Arab region. The school was a beautiful place hidden deep within the labyrinth of streets in the North of the Medina, once we were 5 minutes from the bus, all but the guide were thoroughly lost!
We followed this up with an introductory tour of the Souks of Marrakech. The guide showed us a number of different areas, each selling a different thing. The Souks are centred around two main streets, apparently, but we couldn’t distinguish any main streets as we weaved in and out of some very narrow streets heading off in all directions! The fact that anyone is able to successfully navigate their way through this is incredible. Eventually we ended up at the pharmacology centre and were ushered into one of the larger shops. Inside, we were given an introductory talk about the herbs and spices Moroccan people use for both cooking and natural remedies followed by the obligatory sales pitch. This wasn’t quite what we were expecting of this tour, but it was a lot of fun all the same. We will have to venture back to the Souks on our own on another day I think.
Once we had found some form of an exit from the Souks, we ended up on the Djemaa El-Fna. This is the largest public square in the Arabic world chocked full of market stalls, artists and entertainers. We wandered around for a bit passing endless date stalls, snake charmers, acrobats and monkeys, and after having a monkey thrown at me, we decided it was time to head to a caf´e; for a drink. The banquetting manager at St Pierre would have a fit had she seen how close together all the tables were in the Café Glacier! Here ended our tour of the Souks and the Medina leaving both of us thinking we need a bit more time. Shame everything is shut on a Friday as that is our next free day.