Marrakech was one of my favorite places we’ve visisted and was bursting with hospitality, colors, and sights to see.  This post is a continuation of what to do in Marrakech, Part 1.

Stay in Different Riads

I highly recommend you stay in a few different riads when you visit Marrakech.  They become your mini paradise in the city and I wanted to make sure we could experience a few different styles.  There are so many gorgeous riads online, the hardest part will be choosing only a few to stay in!  We settled on Riad Yasmine and Riad Joharra, because I couldn’t pass up the beautiful tile work!  After a wonderful few nights at Riad Yasmine we hired a carossa to get our luggage to Riad Joharra as many of the medina streets are too narrow for cars to pass, and followed behind him on foot (see below!).

Riad Joharra had a great location in the center of the medina next to the souks and was absolutely gorgeous.  My jaw fell to the floor when we opened the doors to our room!  We were smitten drinking our mint tea on the rooftop terrace and enjoyed the beautiful day up there for a little while thinking about how lucky we were to be in Morocco.  That’s the beauty of Marrakech – it can be as peaceful or as busy as you want it to be.  Although the riad is in the center of the hectic medina, the rooftop, rooms, and inner courtyard are an oasis.  You can tell in the pictures I was very happy!

 

Haggle to Buy Your Very Own Magic Carpet

Now that you’ve mastered your haggling skills in the souks, it’s time to go for the big leagues and get a beautiful Berber carpet.  Buying an authentic Berber carpet is not for the faint of heart – we spent over 4 hours making a deal on ours.  We came away very happy as we think it was the best deal we made all trip, but we were on our way to lunch and decided to just ‘stop in and browse’ some rugs, and before we knew it, it was 4pm and we hadn’t eaten lunch yet!

If you’re serious about buying a carpet, then you won’t want to ask for pricing right when you walk in.  Doing so will show that you aren’t serious, and the seller will likely not have patience for you.  Go in and look at as many rugs as you want, the more the better.  The seller will chat with you and see what styles you like.  Don’t be afraid to ask to see more rugs – this is what they are here for!  Know what you want to buy before you go in – an area rug for your bedroom?  A runner for the hallway?  Make sure you know what dimensions will fit in your home as well.  Have a good poker face when you find one you like and don’t make it so obvious.

When you’ve made a mental note of the rug or rugs you want, you can start narrowing your choices back down with the seller.  The process up to this point may have taken an hour or more.  The seller will now start the bartering process for another hour or hours.  You both know that he will start high, you will start low, and you’ll meet somewhere in between.  Make sure you have a pre-determined price point before you even walk into the shop!  We were asked probably 15 times for our “no kidding maximum price” and we stayed true to what we were comfortable paying.  They will try to make you keep climbing the price upwards – but don’t if you aren’t comfortable increasing the price!

Remember to keep it pleasant and polite, and if the tensions start to get high, they will offer mint tea and drink it with you.  Take this time to learn about them, their culture, and change subjects from the rugs. 🙂  Eventually you will get back to the bartering, and hopefully make a deal!  In our instance, they came down 5000 dir and we came up 1000 dir because we stuck to our pre-agreed price and wouldn’t budge above it.  We ended up with the three rugs in the picture as well as four very large Berber blankets (2.5m x 3m) that we gave as Christmas presents to our family!

The seller and his team will roll up the rugs on the spot which you can carry on to your flight home.  We made out well and were more than ready for a late lunch!

 

Visit the Majorelle Gardens

The Majorelle Gardens are a main attraction to Marrakech for good reason.  French designer Jaques Majorelle created the property from the 1920s to the 1950s, and it was eventually bought by Yves St Laurent in the 1980s.  YSL used it as a second home and escape from the Paris fashion scene.  It consists of botanical gardens and a home of ‘majorelle blue’ with eccentric yellow trim.  It seems everything in Marrakech is bursting with color and I couldn’t love it more.

Because of our multi hour carpet buying session, we arrived here about 1 hr before they stopped letting visitors in.  As with the Madrasa Ben Youssef, this meant we had the whole place to ourselves!  A kind worker even offered to be our personal photographer!

 

Explore the Mouassine Museum

This small museum consists of a renovated Sultan’s riad.  The receptionist is very pleasant and explains all you need to know about the museum, and you are free to explore at your own pace.  It is in the middle of the souks and can be tricky to find, so don’t believe to boys outside telling you it’s closed!  If you can find it, it’s worth the visit.

My favorite room was the beautiful douiria, or reception room where guests would be entertained.  The museum even hosts concerts here that you might be able to catch.  Everything in Marrakech has stunning, intricate design work, and as you can imagine for a Sultan, this home did not disappoint.

 

Other Marrakech posts can be found here and here.

xo