Bee and I decided that we needed a positive start to 2024 after such an awful end to 2023. We decided to spend January in Marrakech. We booked a riad in the Medina and stayed for just under three weeks. It gave us a chance to explore the souk and the New City.
I hadn’t been to Marrakech for almost 20 years. I was fond of it then and I still am. Such an incredible energy about the place. I have to say that I felt it was much more tourist friendly these days, and the souk isn’t as edgy as I remember. Perhaps I was younger and more impressionable then. I spoke to some locals about it during my stay. They said that although there were more tourists, most were coming on cheap flights and were poor customers. Perhaps we all look fondly on the past for different reasons.
Personally, I found it difficult to compare too much to my experience of 20 years ago, because it was such a fleeting visit before, and this was far more immersive. No one seemed to stay at the riad as long as we did, so the staff were used to us at the end. This longer stay meant that we tried more restaurants, worked around more of the streets, got into the spirit of the haggling. While it was tempting to go further afield to see more of Morocco, the reality was that we were really tired from last year, recovering from a stressful period, and I was getting marking done.
The best bits: the riad, the breakfasts, the music museum. The worse bits: The mosquitoes, hucksters who try scamming you. Thankfully, Bee gives zero tolerance to that shit so we didn’t fall foul of any scammers, but we met a few who tried.
Here is a video of my last visit through Morocco, just for the sake of nostalgia:
