Category Travel
Marrakesh, Day 3: Other Hat
Wearing a hat with an eye toward fashion (as opposed to simply blocking the sun or staying warm) is kind of like wearing a bow tie. You feel some trepidation at first — because you don’t want to be the poser who can’t pull it off — but once you do pull it off, you realize that they’re just plain cool. I mean, […]
Marrakesh, Day 3: Madersa Ben Youssef
The Ali ben Youssef Medersa was built in the 1560s as a school for Quranic learning. The complex of buildings served primarily as a residence hall for the students, since the courses were all taught in the adjoining mosque. It provides some exquisite examples of the architectural and decorative elements we saw yesterday at the 19th century Bahia Palace. Principal […]
Marrakesh, Day 3: Streets of Marrakesh
This morning we had two goals: Visit a 16th Century Koranic school, and go shopping in the souks. On our way to the school, we took a detour past one of the well-preserved gates in the ancient city walls. We thought we were seeing the best preserved gate, Bab Agnaou, but later inspection of the […]
Marrakesh, Day 2: What we ate
Amanda and I take great pride in the food we eat and our ability to find delicious food (whether high-end or low) wherever we go. Not every day is a hit, though. For example, today was a disappointingly weak day as from a gastronomical perspective. Breakfast We started off with breakfast at the riad. A simple affair with […]
Marrakesh, Day 2: Bahia Palace
The Bahia Palace in an agglomeration of buildings constructed during the 1860s and 1890s. Master Moroccan artisans were hired to built upon and expand existing buildings, using their finest art. The Palace represents some of the best Moroccan art of that period, with elaborately painted ceilings, lintels, doors and windows. Entrance gate Walkway to the […]
Marrakesh, Day 2: City streets
After reviewing my earlier posts, I resolved to do better at taking ordinary street shots. There’s no way to actually capture the feel of this city — the heat, the smells (good and bad), the insanity of traffic that doesn’t yield or brake for pedestrians (tourist and local alike). But pictures of the ordinary street […]
Marrakesh, Day 2: Le Jardin Majorelle
Jacques Majorelle was a French-born landscape painter during the first half of the Twentieth Century. He settled in Marrakesh in 1917 and, from the 1930s until his death in the early 1960s, developed a fabulous walled garden around his villa, with plants from all around the globe. After Majorelle died, the fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent […]
Marrakesh, Day 1: Doors
If I took pictures of every beautiful door that I passed, I would never get anywhere.
Marrakesh, Day 1: What we ate
We ate our first Moroccan meal at a place called Aqua on the Djemaa. We chose it because it advertised having air conditioning. There was an air conditioner, but we learned to our chagrin that an air conditioner is not the same as having air conditioning. So we sweated through a thoroughly mediocre plate of […]
Marrakesh, Day 1: Hottest walking tour ever
It was a gazillion degrees outside, but I convinced Amanda that we needed to (a) get something to eat, and (b) not waste time lounging about in pretty rooms while there was a city to explore. So we slathered on the sunscreen, donned our hats, and headed out into the heat. Lacking breadcrumbs, we decided […]
A More Gentlemanlike Manner 