Arrival in Marrakech: the Medina and the Riad

Marrakech is unlike anything we had experienced before it, part Manhattan and part 14th century. At its heart is the medina, the ancient historic core surrounded by walls. The reddish-brown clay used on all the walls gives the "red city" its characteristic visual palette. Its main thoroughfares are lined with shops and buzzing with people at all hours, but barely wide enough to step to one side when a cart or a donkey comes through. Motor vehicles are supposedly prohibited, and while scooters flout this abundantly, cars just physically wouldn't fit. Thus when we arrived from the airport, our car brought us to the edge of the medina, where we found a guy with a cart (picture an extra-large wheelbarrow) to take our luggage, and we proceeded the rest of the way on foot to where we would spend the next few nights. The medina is dense and maze-like, and off of the main streets are derbs (alleys) which wind like residential capillaries off of the commercial arteries.

In the derbs, you begin to notice a fundamental aspect of Islamic architecture: tall walls with doors but scant windows. Muslims like the privacy of their homes, which traditionally have minimal outward-facing windows -- small, screened, and mostly on upper floors. The medina buildings are mostly two or three stories tall, and while the doors are often lovely, there is no other decoration or detail outside. Curb appeal is not a thing here. But if you are starting to wonder if Moroccans have no sense of beauty in their homes, step through one of those doors and prepare to be amazed. The traditional riad is arranged around an open courtyard in the center, with everything open to the light and beautifully appointed. If the family were well off, you might find beautiful tile, carved cedar wood, and intricate plaster work decorating the home. The riad, with its many rooms around the courtyard, would have been home to a large extended family. We also heard the notion that families would live more in the upper floors in the summer and in the lower floors in the winter (or was it the other way around?), a seasonal migration within the home. Today many riads, like Le Clos des Arts, our home for the next few nights, have been converted into beautiful boutique hotels. The effect is so dramatic, stepping from the bustling main road, to the quiet narrow derb with its plain walls, then into the amazing beauty of the riad.