Day 8: Impressions of Marrakech.

Hanging out in our riad after a day of sightseeing here in Marrakech. There was a lot of walking touring around the old medina and the new city, but as the city is relatively flat, less stairs than in Fez. We visited all the major sites, including two palaces here in the medina, the principal mosque, and the main square, none of whose names I could tell you. Ooo, though in the principal square we did get to see snake charmers - one even put a snake around my neck. When I get the chance - possibly on the plane to Paris? - maybe I'll fill in details from our itinerary. I'm kinda wiped at the moment. Having the luxury of time to just stop here, I've really been feeling my tiredness. The highlight of my time here was when we visited the Marjorelle gardens in the new city. Besides being absolutely gorgeous, the gardens were previously owned by Yves St Laurent, and we had the good fortune of being here while there was an exhibition of his clothes in the little museum, showing the influence of Morocco in his designs.

The clothes were beautiful, and he had bougainvillea embroideries in some of his designs that I particularly enjoyed, but my favorite part might have been one of the display rooms. The ceiling was dark with lights, and with mirrored walls and angled mirrors on the ceiling it looked like the whole room was filled with stars. It's kinda hard to describe the effect, and regrettably no photos were allowed. Maybe I'll figure out how to recreate the effect on a smaller scale, as my original plan of redoing my bedroom that way is probably overkill.

In terms of my general impressions of the city, Marrakech is an interesting mix of modern and cosmopolitan, while retaining a strong Moroccan flavor. Even the medina is very modern - where in the Fez medina moving things by donkey, here, most people seem to move around by motorcycle.

Anyways, I'm going to go rest up. Tomorrow is going to be pretty chill, but the next day we have a ridiculously early departure from Marrakech to catch our flight from Casablanca to Paris.