Marrakech is the most significant of Morocco's four Royal Cities,
and it has been a favorite playground for the rich and famous for
nearly a century. Well-known celebrities maintain sumptuous villas here,
nestled in the foothills of the great Atlas chain of mountains. The
sea, the snow, the desert -- all are within easy reach. Madonna, Gerard
Depardieu, Kate Moss, and Sir Richard Branson all own residences near
Marrakech. Sarah Jessica Parker, José Carreras, Selma Hayek, Elton John,
Juliette Binoche, Adrien Brody, Jennifer Aniston, Orlando Bloom, and
Paloma Picasso are all frequent visitors to Marrakech and speak
effusively of its charm.
Many of this glittering crowd were on
hand for the re-opening of Marrakech's historically important hotel de
luxe, La Mamounia. If you have never been treated like royalty and crave
that experience (if only for a day or two!) then you should definitely
include a stay at La Mamounia when you visit Morocco. It is not
expensive. A couple can stay at La Mamounia for something around $250 a
night per person, which is today the cost of a mid-range hotel in
Manhattan.
While you are in Marrakech, do not fail to visit the
famous square in the heart of the medina called Djemaa El-Ena, perhaps
the single top tourist attraction in Morocco. The buildings you see
lining the central plaza were probably put up a thousand years ago.
These acres of land have been continuously teeming with people ever
since. During sunlit hours, the plaza is filled with juice vendors in
stalls, mobile water vendors who pour water from leather bags, and
troupes of street performers - snake charmers who try to induce tourists
to pose with them for a fee and musicians with Barbary macaques, much
like organ grinder monkeys, and birds. In the late afternoon snake oil
salesmen, street magicians, and poets succeed these. As dark descends,
Djemaa El-Ena fills with portable food stalls and red hot charcoal
braziers, and this is when the residents of Marrakech are themselves
most likely to take in their famous square to enjoy the Moroccan
equivalent of outdoor fast food.
For a country of its size,
Morocco encompasses many extremes of microclimate and environment. From
the heights of the Atlas, where it is as cold and as snowy as on Rocky
Mountain peaks, you can also explore on the same day the gigantic
burning sand dunes of the Erg Chebbi in the Sahara. These awesome
features of the landscape, waves frozen in the sand but shaped by the
wind much as the waves of the ocean shaped, are 150 feet tall and made
of a thin, pulverized, orange red sand that is the hallmark of the
Sahara.
Visits to the Erg Chebbi are typically organized from a
little village in southeastern Morocco, about 30 miles from the Algerian
border, called Merzouga, a town with the typical blue paint on homes
one sees so often in Morocco, the country of sapphire blue. Long thought
very dry, in recent years geologists have discovered a huge underground
aquifer of fresh water. It will supply water to Merzouga for hundreds
of years.
Part of Morocco's charm is that it is a country of
charming opposites, and so when you have experienced the sand dunes and
seen the sun set in the Sahara you may long for the sea and a different
wind than the winds of the desert. The fishing village of Essaouira is
the place in Morocco to experience the trade winds blowing into its
protected bay. These winds make the beaches of Essaouira the prime
location for the best windsurfing and kite surfing in the Med. Since the
days Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman created their classic film
"Casablanca" in 1942, Morocco has held a special place in the hearts of
all vacationers, especially Americans. Morocco, too, probably has the
longest and best reputation in terms of North Africa tourism, with a
glowing record stretching back to before the Second World War. This is
the year more American than ever will experience Morocco for the first
time.