Marrakech: Morocco's Living Work of Art (Part 2)

Novinite is publishing the second of three articles about Morocco, where a group of journalists was invited to spend more than a week in November and get to know a country which is not far from Europe, looks fantastic on tourist billboards and draws millions of visitors every year, but Europeans don't know about it as much as one would expect.

This second part takes us to the imperial city of Marrakech. None of the texts pretends to be a guidebook at all; it is just a traveller's way to share a few thoughts. The first part, dedicated to Rabat, is available here.

When Winston Churchill visited Marrakech, a city he described as "simply the nicest place on Earth to spend an afternoon", he just needed a fine scenery to inspire him and help him paint several of his best-known watercolors.

In Marrakech, splendid as it is, a visitor realizes

people and not just urban landscapes are what makes up most of the cultural heritage.

Historic sites are impressive, needless to say; streets and buildings we are about to see will stick in our minds. Landmarks on our way point to a glorious past as we walk surrounded by kilometers-long adobe ramparts, bearing testimony to the two separate times in the course of a few centuries when this city was a capital. A number of gardens (Agal, Menara, and colorful Majorelle); the Bahia ("Brilliance") palace built in the 19th century and intended to be the quintessence of Islamic art; the Koutoubia mosque just off Djemaa el-Fnaa with a 77-meter tall minaret seen from a distance of 25 km... 

Well-kempt gardens in the area of the medina, the historic part, are the first thing that strikes the eye in a city with such a semi-arid climate and dry summers, one...