Marrakesh

A more graceful start to the day finding a patisserie for croissants that were less than 20p each.
We then joined our free walking tour with our guide Youssef. He showed us the Koutobia- a mosque, the royal palace, the medina walls that have holes in for scaffolding, the Jewish quarter and the Bahia palace.
We then had lunch at a pizzeria where our lunch cost all together less than £6!!! Followed by banana filled pastry- specifically penicillin flavour yuck!
We had heard earlier in the day about the festival that was occurring on Monday, which we were told meant there was only one day left to see the leather tanneries. So we thought we would take ourselves for a wander to see them. On the way there we were told the square is in the opposite way to which we replied we know we are going to the tanneries. The kind man replied oh my friend works there he is about to walk there he will show you. This kind man taught us some Arabic and marched us to the tanneries. We arrived and were handed some mint by another man to block the smell. This is when lilah got involved and asked are you going to charge us for this and the man replied only donations!
This man then rushed us round the tanneries in approximately 5 minutes and were pushed into the shop across the road and asked multiple times to buy a €900 rug. We declined and left the shop and were met by both our “guides”. They demanded €30 euros each!!! We responded with you said donations! And tried to give them 40 Dirhams- approximately €4. They were not happy. Then the man who marched us the same route as Google maps demanded more money to which we gave him €1. We quickly left and marched back to the hostel to rest.
Had a quick dip in the pool and did some shade bathing.
We then headed out to the market to find some vegetarian street food.
We were bombarded with sale man after sale man. Eventually settled on one street food stall and argued with the man about vegetarian food. Sat there for at least 10 minutes and no one took our order- for reference there was only 5 other people at the stall and it was a fast paced environment. We got up and left.
NEXT STALL- They said they had vegetarian we sat down and the chef then told us no vegetarian.
NEXT STALL- we sat down said vegetarian and weren’t given a choice. We were given olives, barbecued aubergine, peppers, a weird orange potato and vegetarian couscous. All Scrummy but we were very hungry at this point. We thought this would be a cheap meal seeing as lilah was sat on a bin lid as her seat. BUT NO- more expensive than or rooftop dinners.
We then got ‘ginger cake’- a mix of spices and flour.
We then tried to return home via a shop we had seen before, Fran and I picked up some souvenirs and we tried to return to the hostel. At this point it is late. The medina is closing due to Eid tomorrow. Oh we got lost, we got stressed, we walked round in circles in the dark. We walked for about 30 minutes in the dark before eventually getting home. We won’t be doing that again.Leggi altro