What to Do in Marrakech: the Complete Guide, District by District

Marrakech is best explored neighbourhood by neighbourhood, each with its own pace and hours. The medina, encircled by ramparts, concentrates the souks, the Jemaa el-Fna square, the palaces and the medersas. To the west, the Guéliz and the Hivernage line up avenues, galleries, shops and more recent terraces. To the north, the Palmeraie opens onto a landscape of oasis and large estates. Around it, one to three hours’ drive away, the Agafay desert, the valleys of the Atlas and the Atlantic coast round out any stay once it goes beyond three days. What follows reviews each of these worlds, the places to see, the experiences to have and the practical pointers to organise them without rushing.

Getting your bearings: the three worlds of Marrakech and how to link them

The city was built in circles. At the centre, the medina, founded in 1070 and still enclosed within its rammed-earth ramparts, nearly 19 km pierced by around twenty gates. From 1912, the French protectorate built the Guéliz outside the walls, then the Hivernage and its garden-hotels. The Palmeraie, for its part, predates all the rest: an oasis more than 900 years old irrigated by underground channels, the khettaras, which made the city possible. These three worlds can be explored on foot, but the side-car brings an incomparable comfort without in any way reducing the closeness to the places, the people, the culture.

Walking remains the favourite way to explore the medina and the souks, closed to traffic. To reach the Guéliz, the Hivernage or the station, small taxis are plentiful and the journeys short. The ideal way to get around is the side-car: narrow enough to skirt the ramparts and slip through where cars cannot go, comfortable enough to cross the Palmeraie, and at 25 km/h, the exact pace of slow travel. This is why Marrakech Insiders has designed its entire excursion offering around this mode of transport, perfectly suited to the city and its features. To set your bearings as soon as you arrive, the Essential Ride devotes 1hr30 to discovering at least two of the three worlds, of your choosing: the Medina, the Palmeraie or the Guéliz. To link all three in a single ride, there is the Secret Ride, over 3 hours. In both cases, the details of the route are fine-tuned at the start, vintage map in hand, according to everyone’s interests and pace. The report on Marrakech by motorbike with Figaro Magazine gives an idea of what you see from the sidecar.

The medina: Jemaa el-Fna square, souks and monuments

The Marrakech medina, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is best explored on foot: alleyways less than two metres wide, ochre walls, carved cedar doors, the smell of warm bread, mint and worked leather. Early in the morning, between 8am and 10am, it still belongs to its residents; footfall rises in the middle of the day. With young children, a baby carrier or a compact pushchair gets through better than a wide pushchair. Nine and a half centuries of history can be read in its gates and its fondouks, provided you have someone to tell the story.

The Jemaa el-Fna square, by day and by night

The Jemaa el-Fna square, listed by UNESCO among the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity, deserves two visits. In the morning, you can cross it without any crush, between orange juice sellers and storytellers. From an hour before sunset, the food stalls set up and the square fills: grilled meats, brochettes, harira, the smell of charcoal. The terraces of the cafés lining it give the overall view, for the price of a drink. A full meal at a stall costs 5 to 15 €; the stalls further back, frequented by locals too, often offer the best value for money, and two habits are enough to choose well: a stall where there is a crowd, and dishes cooked to order.

The medina by night can also be discovered by side-car from the alleyways rather than from a terrace: the Night Ride (1hr30) sets off from Bab Doukkala, crosses the Hivernage, passes the illuminated square and Koutoubia, then enters the medina with a street food stop, at the exact moment the kitchens set up.

The souks: crafts, bargaining and responsible shopping

The souks stretch north of the square, once organised by guilds: ironworkers, babouche makers, spice merchants, and the dyers’ souk, where the skeins of wool dry above the alleyways. Allow two hours for a first visit, even without buying, time to watch the craftsmanship. Remembering a landmark (a gate, a corner café) helps you find the way out. Bargaining is part of the custom; it is done through conversation, with a smile, starting from about half the price quoted, and it stops as soon as you no longer intend to buy.

On the shopping side, Moroccan leather is best understood in the tanners’ quarter, in operation since the end of the 11th century. Beldi glass, blown from recycled glass, makes a light and useful souvenir with every tea. The homeware shops of the medina and the Guéliz offer a ready-made selection, at fixed prices, for those short on time; the workshops and cooperatives that pay their artisans fairly are worth the detour for a purchase that means something. Carefully wrapping pottery and glassware limits breakage in the suitcase.

Monuments, palaces and museums of the medina

The Koutoubia mosque, a 77-metre minaret from the 12th century, serves as a landmark from anywhere in the medina. The interior is reserved for Muslims; its gardens, open to all, offer a shaded break after walking, and the low light of late afternoon makes it the moment for photographs. To the south, the Bahia palace (19th century) strings together patios, painted ceilings and zelliges in around 1hr30; come early, as it is very busy in the middle of the day. The El Badi palace, “the Incomparable”, is now only an esplanade of high rammed-earth walls where storks nest, with terraces overlooking the rooftops of the medina; an hour is enough. The Saadian tombs, 16th-century mausoleums rediscovered in 1917, are visited via a narrow corridor that sometimes creates a queue; bring water in summer, as shade is scarce.

North of the souks, the Ben Youssef medersa, a restored former Quranic school, lines up courtyards, stucco and carved cedar; the Marrakech museum, in a neighbouring former palace, can be visited in the same half-day. Three other houses are worth the detour for those who have already seen the major sites: the Dar Si Said museum, quieter than the Bahia and devoted to crafts; the Dar El Bacha museum, a sumptuous palace whose historic café draws as much interest as the rooms; and the Maison de la Photographie, which adds to its old photographs one of the best rooftop terraces over the city. Entry fees are usually between 7 and 15 € per site, up to around 20 € for certain gardens and private venues.

The Mellah, the former Jewish quarter to the south-east, tells of a medina built by several communities; you can still read the history in the stones, the trades and the street names. This is precisely the ground covered by the Essential Ride medina version: 1hr30 through the non-touristy part, the kasbah, the Mellah, the tanners’ quarter, the gates and their meaning, where life goes on as usual.

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Gardens and moments to breathe

After the density of the medina, the gardens give you room to breathe. The Majorelle garden, in the Guéliz, lines up cacti, bamboo and pools around the villa painted in the ultramarine blue that bears its name; allow an hour, entry is paid and footfall high, hence the value of arriving at opening time or in late afternoon and booking your ticket online. The neighbouring Yves Saint Laurent museum extends the visit with fashion, design and the couturier’s attachment to Morocco. The place takes on another dimension when placed back in the 1960s, when the city drew a bohemian jet set, from Saint Laurent to Warhol: the Iconic Ride (3 hours) continues from Majorelle by side-car towards the other addresses of that period, Dar el Hench, Saint Laurent and Bergé’s first house in the medina, the Bab El Khemis flea market he used to scour, an Art Deco villa in the Palmeraie and La Trattoria, decorated by Bill Willis.

In the medina itself, Le Jardin Secret is an unsuspected haven in the middle of the souks, restored around its historic irrigation system. On the boundary between medina and new town, the Cyber Parc Arsat Moulay Abdeslam offers eight hectares of shaded paths, precious in the middle of the day. Further west, the Menara garden and its 12th-century pool give, on a clear day, the view of the snow-capped Atlas, and lend themselves to a picnic. At the gates of the city, the Anima garden, a surrealist creation by André Heller, the Cactus Thiemann farm, the largest in Africa, and the monumental sculptures of the Al Maaden Sculpture Park facing the Atlas appeal to those who have already seen Majorelle and are looking for something else.

Guéliz and Hivernage: modern Marrakech

Outside the walls, the city changes scale: tree-lined avenues, four-storey buildings, café terraces on the pavement. The Guéliz was born in 1913, when the protectorate laid out a European town to the west of the medina, linked to the Koutoubia by Mohammed V avenue; the Hivernage, to the south, followed with its garden-hotels and villas. People come here for three things: the Art Deco architecture of the 1930s, the galleries and museums, and the shopping away from the souks. It is also the neighbourhood where you dine and go out. The Guéliz deserves a full half-day, preferably the afternoon, when the medina is at its hottest and the shops reopen, around 3.30pm.

Art Deco and the traces of the protectorate

The Guéliz is read by looking up: white façades with rounded corners, running balconies, geometric ironwork, the city’s first cinema and first hotel. The town hall, the church of the Holy Martyrs (1928) and the buildings of Mohammed V avenue set the framework; two hidden treasures of the Guéliz, the former Koutoubia hotel and the Fouque estate, reveal themselves to those who know where to look. The streets branching off the avenue mix the eras from one door to the next: street art, working-class buildings, 1950s villas, office towers. The neighbourhood can be explored on foot in an hour and a half, between 4pm and sunset, when the façades catch the light.

To situate this new town between the other two, the Guéliz is one of the three worlds the Essential Ride offers to choose from over 1hr30, in a version for lovers of Art Deco and 1930s relics. The Secret Ride (3 hours) places it between the Palmeraie and the medina, Art Deco façades and protectorate remnants included. And it is in the Guéliz that the Iconic Ride ends its 1960s route, at La Trattoria, whose opulent décor bears the signature of Bill Willis.

Museums, galleries and shopping

The Guéliz concentrates the city’s recent museums. The Majorelle garden and the Yves Saint Laurent museum, neighbours on Yves Saint Laurent street, are visited in the same morning; the MAP museum, the World of Adornment Arts, adds a collection of jewellery and adornments that extends the visit to the jewellers’ souks. The contemporary art galleries cluster in the streets around Mohammed V avenue and generally open from 10am to 1pm then from 3.30pm to 7pm, closed on Sundays for the most part. On the shopping side, the neighbourhood’s homeware shops and concept stores sell Moroccan crafts reinterpreted, at fixed prices this time, with no bargaining. The cafés with large tables and power sockets also make it the neighbourhood where people work remotely in the morning before heading off to explore.

The Hivernage and the evening

The Hivernage, between the Guéliz and the ramparts, is the neighbourhood of the palaces and garden-hotels, of the Royal Theatre and the congress centre, a ten-minute walk from the Koutoubia and the Menara garden. By day, it is crossed more than it is visited; in the evening, it becomes the centre of nightlife, which the Night Ride shows well, setting off from Bab Doukkala, crossing the illuminated Hivernage before reaching the medina and its street food stop.

The pace shifts compared with Europe: the rooftops fill an hour before sunset, dinner is around 9pm, the bars come alive from 11pm to 1am, the clubs of the Hivernage only fill after midnight. Alcohol is mainly served in the hotels, the restaurants of the Guéliz and the riads; smart dress is required after 10pm in hotel bars. Where to go out is therefore decided by neighbourhood and time: the medina and the surroundings of Jemaa el-Fna for the terraces and dinner-show, the Guéliz for the bars and lively restaurants, the Hivernage for the hotel bars and clubs. The rooftops of the medina, at sunset, remain the simplest place to start an evening, and a table like that of Latitude 31, in the medina, shows what Moroccan cuisine becomes when it is reinterpreted. For the return, as the medina is closed to traffic, a taxi drops you at the gates; book weekend tables several days in advance.

The Palmeraie and the nearby surroundings

The Marrakech Palmeraie, to the north, is best experienced neither on foot nor by a simple there-and-back taxi ride: 15,000 hectares of date palms, khettaras that have irrigated it since the 11th century, and the large estates that earn it the nickname “Beverly Hills of Marrakech”. Marrakech Insiders takes you there by side-car, for maximum comfort and a real reading of the place: it is one of the three worlds of the Essential Ride, and the Secret Ride adds to it, as an option, a private collection of vintage cars from the 1920s to the 1980s. Horse or dromedary rides and a picnic under the date palms round off the morning.

The Palmeraie also shelters houses that are stories in themselves, such as the Casa Gyla or the Addi ou Addi villa, a legendary oasis since the 1920s, and above all Dar El Sadaka, the private sculpture park of the artist Jean-François Fourtou, closed to the public, with “The House Fallen from the Sky” and “The Giant’s House”. It can only be visited with an Insider: the Sadaka Ride (3 hours) leads there through the alleyways of the medina and the tree-lined paths of the Palmeraie, the most fun ride for young and old alike. As a family, the Kids Ride (1hr30) reaches the Palmeraie for a photo stop among the camels and returns via the medina with an ice cream; for every side-car booked, 100 MAD are donated to the Education For All association, which funds boarding houses for young girls in the Atlas.

An hour to the south, the Agafay desert, stone hills and camps, is best visited at the end of the day for sunset, around 6pm to 7pm depending on the season, and should be booked the day before at the latest in high season. On the same road, the zaouia of Tameslhot is a little-known sanctuary that is worth the stop. In the early morning, the hot-air balloon flight over the plain and the first foothills of the Atlas takes up a good half-day, taking off before sunrise.

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Day trips from Marrakech

From three days onwards, a day out of the city is a change of air. The Ourika valley, an hour away, is the most sought-after cooler alternative: Berber villages, the Setti Fatma waterfalls, lunch with your feet in the water. The hike in the Atlas from Imlil, at the foot of Mount Toubkal, is done with a local guide and lunch in a family home, often around a tajine prepared on the spot; the summit takes two days. To the west, the day trip to Essaouira leads in two and a half hours to the ocean, its harbour of blue boats and its grilled sardines, with the goats perched in the argan trees along the way. To the east, the Ouzoud waterfalls drop 110 metres, 150 km from Marrakech, Barbary macaques included; allow 2hr30 to 3 hours’ drive each way and a half-day on site.

These days out are booked the day before or a few days in advance in high season, by shared transport, private car with driver or guided package.

Experiences and the Moroccan art of living

Marrakech is as much a place to taste as it is to visit. A cooking class, usually a morning, teaches the real tajine and should be booked the day before. The tanjia marrakchia, meat confit in an earthenware jar in the oven of the neighbourhood hammam, is the dish you only find here. Mint tea, poured from height into its beldi glass, punctuates every day. Prices follow three tiers: 5 to 15 € per person at the stalls and small eateries, 20 to 40 € in the restaurants of the medina and the riads, the best balance between the setting and the plate, 50 € and more for the fine-dining tables and the rooftops with entertainment.

The hammam is part of the rhythm: the traditional hammams and spas of the medina and the hotels offer black-soap exfoliation and argan-oil massage, an hour and a half best slotted in at the end of the afternoon, with no desire to walk afterwards. Sleeping in a riad, a patio house of the medina, changes the stay: calm a few minutes from the souks, a breakfast of msemen and beghrir on the patio, tea on the terrace at the end of the day. Book several weeks in advance in spring and autumn. All this is best experienced by taking your time: three places seen properly are worth more than ten passed through, and it is the art of slow travel that the side-car imposes of its own accord, at 25 km/h.

Planning your stay: when to go, how many days, what budget

When to visit Marrakech: spring (March to May) and autumn (October to November) offer the most pleasant days, summer exceeds 40 °C and is lived early in the morning and in the evening, winter is mild by day and cool at night. As for packing, comfortable clothing, closed shoes for the cobbles, an extra layer in the morning and evening outside summer, shoulders and knees covered in religious sites and smart dress after 10pm in hotel bars; a first trip is best prepared with these few pointers.

The length is chosen according to ambition: two days cover the medina and a garden, 72 hours add the Guéliz and an evening off the beaten track, five days leave room for the Agafay desert and the Atlas. Marrakech is a safe destination, like most major tourist cities, in Europe and elsewhere: staying on the well-lit routes in the evening in the medina, leaving valuables at the riad, and adopting the local dress codes is enough, including for a woman travelling alone.

What budget to plan for?

Three indicative tiers for accommodation, to be confirmed according to the season and the neighbourhood:

• Budget (hostel, simple guesthouse): around 50 to 70 € a night, practical and often well located.
• Mid-range (charming riad in the medina): around 90 to 150 € a night, the best value for money, with the setting of a patio and, frequently, breakfast included.
• High-end (exceptional riad or hotel with spa, on the Hivernage or Palmeraie side): from 200 € a night, for the space, the service and the table.

On the meals side, 5 to 15 € per person at the stalls, 20 to 40 € in the restaurants of the medina and the riads, 50 € and more for the fine-dining tables. Entry to monuments and museums ranges from 7 to 15 € per site, up to around 20 € for certain gardens and private venues: these moderate prices make it possible to multiply the visits.

Exploring Marrakech by side-car: the six circuits

This whole panorama links together by side-car. Marrakech Insiders, a local operator, has mapped out six types of circuit from 1hr30 to 3 hours, each with its own route, aboard a vintage side-car, one to two passengers per vehicle and a private Insider who speaks English, French, Spanish or Arabic. The meeting point is near Bab Doukkala, along the ramparts on the new-town side, a five-minute taxi ride from Jemaa el-Fna.

• Essential Ride (1hr30): two of the three worlds of your choosing, Medina, Palmeraie or Guéliz, the details of the route set at the start according to your interests and your pace.
• Secret Ride (3 hours): the three worlds in a single ride, from the khettaras of the Palmeraie to the Art Deco of the Guéliz and the Bab El Khemis flea market.
• Night Ride (1hr30): the Hivernage then the medina as night falls, street food stop included.
• Kids Ride (1hr30): the Palmeraie and its camels, an ice cream on the way back through the medina.
• Sadaka Ride (3 hours): Dar El Sadaka and the world of Jean-François Fourtou, closed to the public and reserved exclusively for Marrakech Insiders passengers.
• Iconic Ride (3 hours): the Marrakech of the 1960s, from Dar el Hench to La Trattoria.

The six itineraries and their prices are detailed here. For a practical question, a time, a meeting point, WhatsApp remains the quickest.