Marrakech - Africa's most exciting cities to Marrakesh has always belonged - and for some visitors it is also the prettiest. Well, it is 150 km to the Atlantic and not even 50 to the High Atlas. For the caravans, which in previous centuries from the Sahara in the south in the old royal city came, it was after weeks of deprivation as a revelation. And a little bit, the tourists are still way through the barren landscape in southern Morocco to Marrakech travel - in a city with many faces, from which the famous Medina is only one.
In the country to see young Moroccans, especially the Berber in the south, often no longer the future - and when one sees the villages, one can well understand: Drought trees are on the verge of dry fields in which stones the size of a football subject. Farmers plow the soil cracked cumbersome with the donkey. Many houses in the villages are inconspicuous Lehmklötze with flat roof and battered wooden shutters.
A shepherd driving a flock of small black goats through a street in the direction of the horizon. Tourists who like such scenes as a photo motif, the Government prepare them headaches: agriculture was the dominant industry in southern Morocco, but sheep and goats to feed the growing population no longer. More and more younger people are attracted to cities such as Casablanca, Morocco boomtown in a metropolitan area with six million people.
No trace of 1001 Nights
Even Marrakech, Agadir after the second tourist destination in the country, already counts more than 900,000 inhabitants, and the trend is upward. Before the outskirts lies a large cement factory pipes, tubes, a conveyor belt, several towers and a chimney, from the thick swaths of white smoke sources - there is no trace of 1001 Nights. The flat roofs of the tenements are equipped with an armada of satellite dishes. On a street corner stands a McDonald's restaurant, at the next Pizza Hut.
Marrakech is the center of the South, even in economic terms, which does not mean that there is no poverty: On the roadside sit day laborers, simply dressed men, some of which are squeezed into their carts have. They are awaiting orders as a transporter of goods imported into the city be placed.
Many women in the streets wear clothes ground long, some are veiled. A mother has her baby in a white cloth tied in front of the chest, just a bare foot out looking. On the street knattert a moped after another pass, often with two people on the seat, none of them bears a helmet. A dealer has two huge baskets left and right of the steering wheel hanged. On the sidewalk sits a shoe shiners. All this is Marrakech, but also lemon, there are fields, orchards with thousands of grapes and olive trees.
Marrakech is famous mainly for the Medina called for the old town and souks, the largest in Morocco. In the corridors of the market, it is almost always full, sometimes loud and always alive. Hahn is running a hectic one of the stands before passing to the mirror, brass hanging lamps and cans are sold. Only a few steps further is vegetable market. Another dealer sells snails from bowls full rand. In addition, there is a cage with an animal of another kind - about turtles and a chameleon. Stalls lined with ceramic together, dishes and bowls of all sizes in bright colors from red to deep green. A craftsman sells bellows, another hammer in the form of brass.
Tourist trap jugglers market
Those who drive through the souk can land on short or long on the Djemaa al-Fna, the colorful, lively and mistaken place in North Africa. In earlier centuries were the heads of executed on piles asked to review. Today is the Djemaa al-Fna stage, bazaar and tourist trap. Because of the "place of clowns" is also a place of crooks: For each photograph and for every live show must be paid. The Affendresseure set to prompt cash value just like the snake and water carriers. Whose main income are long the tourists.
ON TO SPIEGEL ONLINE Morocco: Tarfaya and the Little Prince (17.02.2008) film Country Morocco: blockbuster from the desert (18.07.2007) pig in Morocco: extra sausage for Europeans (03.04.2008) Morocco: surfing, praying, surfing (02.10. 2007) Marrakech: Heart of a King City (13.04.2006) From "place of clowns" is the symbol of the city, the minaret of the Koutoubia Mosque, have to see. Yet known but is the Ben Youssef Medersa in the north of the old town, unlike the Koutoubia Mosque also by non-Muslims must be visited.
For centuries it was the largest and most beautiful Medersa the Maghreb countries, a mixture of worship and higher school for Islamic law and theology. From the outside, it unremarkable - and all the more impressive from the inside: A pool of water stands in the center of the inner courtyard. The high walls that made him conclude, are decorated with stucco from plaster and marble and with calligraphy or floral and geometric patterns covers.
Only creatures are not visible - which forbids representation of Islam. To 1960 young men here have been informed. Their rooms are yet to see: Three persons were divided often barely ten square meters.
A green oasis of Yves Saint Laurent
Once again a totally different side of Marrakech is reflected in the Jardin Majorelle. Jacques Majorelle was a Frenchman with a penchant for Morocco and a hand for garden architecture. He bought the land in the twenties. Since 1947, his garden is open to the public. For a time belonged to the green oasis the fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent, which ensured that they are not forgotten - fortunately for the many tourists who now through the narrow paths run.
Green dominates the Jardin Majorelle clearly apart from the flower pots, in yellow and various shades of blue are deleted, and the museum building in deep blue. There is a small museum of Moroccan art, and a cafe hidden in an exceptionally beautiful courtyard. On a pond with water lilies countless turtles can be observed.
A fairy tale from 1001 night is also the Jardin Majorelle not really - but he comes pretty close to him.
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