Jemaa El Fna - The Assembly of Dead in Marrakech

The heart of Marrakech pulsates at night with food stalls, performers, snake charmers, monkeys, henna ladies, more souqs and thousands of people:





The mosque:

Looking down on the square:





The mish mash of pedestrians, motorbikes, cars, horses and crazy:

Mini white whine redux plus more Marrakech

Right now I'm at Luton waiting for my connecting flight to Dublin, hating on smarmy, whingy Brits echoing in ears - possibly the most whiney accent of all time. It just takes me back to early episodes of The Bill, when they had to bust in on the Jasmin Allen housing commission flats like, every episode...

Having said that I quite like the sound of the Irish accent! Or Scottish. Esp when David Tennant speaks in his native tongue...hello, doctor! Anywho....
To kill time - so many pictures of Marrakech, so little time!

The Qu'uranic school/Medrasa in Marrakech:






The museum of Marrakech:


The amazing souqs!!! I spent hours looking through these and didn't even cover half!!

















Attack of the henna ladies! (nb I probably could've done better with a texta using my left hand but hey, when in Marrakech!)


The heart of Marrakech - Jema El Fna to come!

Majorelle Jardins

Firstly - Marrakech is amazing, my most favourite place in Morocco, I'm a little sad to be leaving here tomorrow after only 3 days.

This morning I took a walk to Majorelle Jardins, a large garden and home designed and established by frenchman Jacques Majorelle. It was left to ruin, then saved by Yves Sant Laurent and his partner Pierre Bergé who established a fund to maintain the gardens and now YSL's ashes were scattered here after he died in 2008.



The gardens are a tranquil and cool respite from the heat of Marrakech, composed mostly of sub tropical succulents and palms.









To my pure childish delight, I discovered turtles and frogs swimming in the pond... I get easily excitable seeing turtles so closely!


There's a frog in there somewhere:





I really dig the cactus. Sorry!

The blue of Chefchaouen

For a totally different pace, in the Rif mountains lays Chefchaouen. Although the temperature today reached 50C (and I'm still alive!!!) the blue of the village seemed to keep the place cool.... This place feels like it's stuck in a time warp of some time period I'm totally unaware of, not moving anywhere in particular but I love it.


A few gorgeous doorways:






The passages through the village all look the same:








Rugs for sale:


A familiar sight:

Fes

Amazing, sweltering Fes....... Another crazy day in a different world, I loved it.

Looking over Old Fes


The Royal Palace








Hi Brother J!


Entrance to the old medina, mosque visible. This medina is made up of 10,000 unmarked streets..... Crazy!


The Q'uuarnic School inside the medina





Dying pits in the tannery inside the medina..... These men work in this sweltering heat with an unbearable stench, all day every day


Busy busy souks line the medina, along with 50,000 cats








Oh yeah, of all people - I bought a rug! Not just any rug, a traditional hand made Berber dowry rug, (it's not like a traditional Arabian rug at all, please) It's beautiful!!! I guess there's a sucker born every minute....

Morocco pt 1

Thus far, my time in morocco has been fast paced, intense at times and totally amazing!!! There's too much for me to describe and it's hard to find the right words to use but I am thoroughly enjoying every moment and new experience.

Alas, I'm taking very few photos on my iPhones, due to several reasons: safety, extreme heat, very crowded medinas and basically the fact I don't want to spend all my time seeing things only through a lense!! Anywho here's a few dodgy ones from the past few days....

My new friend @ the medina in Rabat:


My room in Moulay Idris:


The walls of the medina in Meknes:


The huge square outside the old medina in Meknes:





Ps. Casablanca, yuck. No ones looking at you, kid.