Travel to Marrakech

Day 1 Barcelona - Marrakech (Medina and Djemaa el Fna square)

Marrakech: Like other Moroccan imperial cities, Marrakech is divided mainly into two parts: the center with the great Medina or old city, surrounded by spectacular ramparts of red earth, and, outside the walls, the ville nouvelle or new city, built by the French in the years of colonial domain and constantly expanding.

The old and the new towns are separate administrative entities, governed in part by different rules: in Medina alcohol is prohibited and buildings can not exceed three stories high. Instead, it serves for all Marrakech the rule that the exterior of the buildings has to be red-ocher, the natural color of the local land, traditionally used as building material. Hence its nickname of "red city".

The Medina of Marrakech is full of ancient palaces and mosques, which as is customary in Morocco are not open to non-Muslims. Its most prominent landmark is the large square of Jamaa el Fna. West of the bastions of Medina lies the ville nouvelle, with the neighborhoods of Hivernage and Guéliz; the main artery is the Avenue Mohammed V, a broad tree-lined avenue that ends at one of the old city gates. To the east, finally, is the residential area of ??the Palmeraie.

Everything in Marrakech revolves around Jamaa el Fna. Thousands of people come together in this public space, filling it of color, culture and business. Storytellers, teachers expounding his teachings, snake charmers, dancers, dentists, sellers of fruit juices, acrobats, letter writers, drawers of water ... an infinite number of activities and people coming together and are crowding the square and adjacent streets when night falls.

The square is large and is surrounded on all sides, except one, by the medina souks classified by their main activity. At the edges of the square have established a number of cafes, as the Coffee of France, and restaurants of all categories who open their terraces to the show that way in this monumental scene.

At the dinner time also mounted provisional restaurants offering typical food full of flavor and color: hot couscous, grilled lamb heads, salads, fritters ... ready to enjoy at tables set up right there .. The square is illuminated by thousands of lights and flooded with plenty of smoke odors.

The Cultural Space of Jemaa el-Fna was inscribed by UNESCO in 2008 in the Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity (originally proclaimed in 2001). A curious comment that Alfred Hitchcock filmed in Jamaa el Fna scenes from the movie The Man Who Knew Too Much.

We returned via the busy streets of the Medina to Riyadh Mariana.