© Martin Furtschegger · CC BY (opens in a new tab)

Illustrative photo of Marrakech — property galleries are on each booking page.

Where to stay in Marrakech

Behind Marrakech's rose-ochre ramparts, riads sit on lanes barely wide enough for a loaded handcart — here's what the medina is actually like, and every stay we'd book there ourselves.

The Marrakech medina is the walled old city founded around 1070 by the Almoravid dynasty, still enclosed by roughly 19 kilometres of rose-ochre ramparts pierced by historic gates like Bab Doukkala and Bab Agnaou. Inside, the street plan predates the automobile entirely: riads sit behind blank, unmarked doors on lanes barely wide enough for a loaded handcart, so most visitors navigate by landmark rather than address, and porters with wooden carts are still a normal part of the traffic. The call to prayer from the Koutoubia Mosque's 77-metre minaret, on the medina's western edge, marks the rhythm of the day across the whole quarter.

At the centre sits Jemaa el-Fna, a square whose daily transformation — orange-juice carts and henna artists by day, food stalls, musicians and storytellers by night — was significant enough that UNESCO named it a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity in 2001, the first site anywhere to receive that designation. Streets radiate outward into a network of roughly eighteen souks — spice, dye, leather, metalwork — among the largest traditional markets in Morocco. Compared with Fes, the Marrakech medina is smaller, flatter and denser with tourism infrastructure, and riads here tend to open directly onto busy commercial lanes rather than the quieter residential alleys typical of Fes el-Bali.

Things to do in Marrakech

Jemaa el-Fna square

the medina's central square, listed by UNESCO in 2001 as a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity for its storytellers, musicians and food vendors — go late afternoon to watch it shift from market to open-air night market.

Bahia Palace

a 19th-century vizier's palace with roughly 150 rooms and courtyards centred on carved cedar ceilings and zellige tilework, begun in 1866 and expanded by the vizier's son.

Ben Youssef Madrasa

built in 1564-65, once the largest Islamic college in the Maghreb with room for 800 students around a carved-plaster courtyard — reopened in 2022 after a four-year restoration.

El Badi Palace

commissioned in 1578 as a diplomatic showpiece finished in Italian marble, stripped for materials after the Saadian dynasty's fall and now an atmospheric ruin — and an active stork-nesting site.

The souks north of Jemaa el-Fna

a working market district of roughly eighteen souks organised by trade, from the dyers' souk to the leather souk — go early morning, before the tour groups, for the calmest browsing.

Saadian Tombs

the 16th-century royal necropolis, sealed up and forgotten for centuries until it was rediscovered by aerial survey in 1917; access is through a narrow passage beside the Kasbah Mosque.