Marrakesh Travel Forum

Hi everyone. My wife and I are thinking of going to Marakesh in March. I am a bit concerned that a full seven day break might be too long. We intend to visit the main sites but don't want to find ourselves just wandering because we have nothing better to do. We thought we would stay in a 2* riad. The Company we are looking at is Riad Seduction advertised through expedia. My wife is 57 and I am 60 and we are not terribly adventurous travellers really. Any comments would be appreciated. Thanks

Hi there.
We are just a couple of years younger than you two and we've been to Marrakesh a few times, it's wonderful. It is limited in sights to visit however but "just wondering with nothing better to do" is part of the charm of the city, especially on a first visit, though you might find it hard to keep your bearings. It's a city of two parts: the modern French boulevards right next to the old city within the walls, this is the "expected" Marrakesh of legend though somewhat watered down these days - I first went there in 1975 when it was a bit wilder.
I personally would find 7 days more than enough. we usually do 3 days then head for somewhere such as Essaouira or Agadir or even over the mountains to Ouarzazate and have a final day in Marrakesh to buy the things we've not found elsewhere.
We were going to be going in March this year but we've now made different plans.

Hi - We were there 4 days/5 nights and it was plenty. We did and saw everything we wanted. Any more time then that, you'd need to venture out of the city to the mountains, etc. Enjoy!

We visited Marrakech early December and stayed five days and in my opinion it was enough. We were in the city for 2 1/2 days and made two day trips in the mountains.

As said before the city itself offers not too much (if you are not only for shopping in the souks and bargaining), but I highly recommend visiting the Atlas Mountains and some Berber villages. You also could visit Essaouira, a coastal town.

The drives into the Atlas Mountains was one of the highlights of our stay. We visited both Tizi-n-Test (with the Tin Mal Mosque) and Tizi-n-Tichka (and Telouet) Pass. Telouet has the Kasbah of Pasha el-Glaoui.
It is possible to do this day trips by a so called 'grand taxi' (= car with driver), which cost about 750 Dirhams.

For accommodation I can also recommend Hotel Sherazade (which is a riad). More info on my Marrakech page.

happy travels
Jaap

I agree 7 days may seemn a a little long & it would be nice to get away to the peace of the countryside & mountains or maybe a few days luxury in the Palmerie. If you are not too adventurous you may want to use a company to book a couple of trips out. Oureka valley & Imlil with Kasbah de Toukbal are too easy day trips. We used a company called Naturally Morocco to book these before we left UK.

No, it is not too long. This will you time to see the sights on a more leisure pace and make some trips to the countryside. You could take a day trip to the Atlas, the Ourika Valley, the Waterfalls of Ouzoud. All worthwhile and there will be plenty of travel agencies who organise such trips. Don't forget to visit the Jardin Majorelle in Marrakesh.

As with all the previous good answers my answer would be that no 7 days is not too long as there are plenty of options for places to visit as day or overnight trips in the surrounds of Marrakech.
but if you really did want to just stay in Marrakech there is plenty to do really and there might actually be more that you can leisurely and enjoyably fill your time than the previous posters do realise!

i have a number of tips in my pages that are missing/not yet put together but are in other VTers tips that are musts or recommendeds - and if I didnt have such a love for so many other places around Morocco if I had the luxury of 7 days in Marrakech (which ive actually done a number of times - i pretty much lived in Morocco - but not as a tourist seeing all that I could see each day - it was much later that I got to see additions such as the Musee of Marrakech and the Ben Yousseff Medersa and was appalled that Id not seen such wonderful place much sooner!) but even visits to the lovely Art Deco hotel that Winston Churchill loved the Mamounia is great to see the decor and relax with a couple of martinis whatever, walking around the rose gardens along the city walls, around the old Jewish quarter near and in addition to the Saadian tombs, visiting Chez Ali at night, spending some time shopping at Marjane supermarket - might not be your thing but we always loved and actually did it on a daily basis during hot weather!, shopping in the Gueliz in addition to the souks (i found there were often excellent deals for shoes and clothes), the marjorelle gardens and its museum for a relaxing morning or afternoon, just sitting around having coffee at various places and overlooking the main square Djma Elfna, the Bahia palace of course is a must, take a caleche/horse and carriage ride out to the Palmeraie, walk around the Menara gardens - especially lovely when the Atlas mountains in the background will have snow on top,

but bear in mind too that March is such a lovely month though to appreciate it one needs to travel a bit - the countryside in many places becomes prolifically in bloom with fields of spring flowers and almond blossoms. The road to TizinTest and up to Oikaimden/Ourika, the road to Telouet, the road to Cascade Douzoud and back the Khenifra road and around Tafroute are all nice areas in bloom plus the added bonus of picturesque snow topped mountains around the place.
and one doesnt have to be particularly adventurous to get a car and go driving around. or you can rent a grande taxi with driver to drive you around.

I would mostly recommend a visit to Telouet - probably my favourite place/area/ and road route Marrakech to Telouet (equal with Dades Gorge road)- as the route there is particularly attractive with quite a range of diversity in countryside and a nice spot to stay overnight in (see my tip for Jackies House in Telouet) and the area has such colour in the soils, hillsides and mountains and the fields are usually green/colourful with crops and theres of course the palace, the road to Anmiter and the market/souk day on Thursdays in Telouet that berber villagers from miles around come to still by donkey or mule or feet. a lovely spot to be in Spring. last year the spring blossoms around the palace were excellent. certainly 3 days here to enjoy the area would not be too much!

as for riads/accommodation in Marrakech - vtveens recommendation of Sherazade is an excellent recommendation and also you could try and see if www.jnanemogador.com still has availability - they are a lovely riad at such excellent prices (up to half the price of other riads) that they fill up usually 2-3 months in advance. good flight deals can be found with www.atlas-blue.com, thomson-fly,easyjet(tho theyre getting a bit more exensive),and even www.ba.com often have comparable deals as does the big boss www.royalairmaroc.com now that theres competition.

Just agreeing with everyone else - went for five days last year and two more would have been perfect. We spent one day (and a night) in Essaouira, but even if we hadn't gone there we'd have had enough to keep us occupied in Marrakesh. We never really saw the 'European' section of the city for example and it would have been nice to have more time to relax at the riad. In fact, I'd quite like to go to Marrakesh simply to relax in a riad or two reading, swimming, etc.

And I had to abandon my original plans to go to the mountains as there just wasn't enough time.

I don't know what the Seduction is like, but I know that I found a much better selection of riads on www.riadsmorocco.com than the likes of Lastminute, etc. They're the kind of riads you want to spend time in (and the only other guests there seemed to spend much of their time there) and most are affordable, if not a downright bargain!

There is no "Riad Seduction" in Marrakesh. What it is is a classification system for certain types of Riads, so what happens is that they slot you in somewhere in a Riad of the "Seduction" standard. This is very misleading and doesn't allow you to decide for yourself which Riad/amenities you prefer. If I were you I would try to book with a Riad directly.

Hi,
In fact spending 7 days in one place gets you very bored.I would suggest 3-4 days in Marrakech and then 1 day to the ourika valley-1 day to Essaouira or Ouarzazate.
If youneed more tips,feel free to email me at:
rachid_qotaibah2002@yahoo.fr

Good luck,
Rachid