From a rooftop restaurant, you can enjoy the market scenery including rows of rugs hanging from balconies.

and you pass them by on your way in and out of the medina . . .

Rugs hang near the doorway of a shop in the Marrakech medina.

but there’s nothing like a couple of hours being courted by salesmen in a Marrakech rug shop!

Chef Joanne Weir gets a hug from a favorite rug salesman in Marrakech.

From the minute you step in the door, you’re bombarded with colors, textures, and salesmen guiding your every step.  Rugs are ready, beckoning you to come inside to look, to touch, and to make you wish you could buy one for every room of your home.

Stacked on the floor are the now-popular white and black rugs popular in today’s American decor.

Waiting for someone to come back to the loom at a Marrakech rug shop.

If you’re lucky, you may meet someone who’s mastered the art of weaving, someone who’s made it her day-to-day profession, as hard as it may be.  Weavers study patterns and then get to work, picking up one strand at a time and weaving methodically in, out, in, out until the job is done.

A weaver pauses to show us her work.

You may see rugs in piles . . .

Even in Morocco, gray is a popular color for decorating. Here, rugs wait to be selected by customers ready to decorate.

or hung over balconies.

Upstairs, more rugs are piled high and flopped over the balcony rails. Rugs everywhere!

But when you finally take a seat in the showroom, you are treated to a presentation like no other as men unfurl for your scrutiny one hand-woven art piece at a time.

You can leave your comfortable viewing seat to touch and feel, take pictures, and imagine how a rug would look in a room back home.

Two California ladies shop for Moroccan rugs.

Or you can stay seated while someone dramatically pours hot, freshly brewed mint tea into a glass cup for you to sip while you stare at the one-at-time show.

A salesman pours mint tea in dramatic Moroccan fashion for customers.

Longing for a blue-patterned rug?  They’ll bring it out.  Something more traditional? They’ll probably have whatever you want — just ask.

A contemporary rug incorporating a traditional diamond pattern

And then it all comes down to choices, of course, and how much you can afford to ship home from Morocco. Since deciding is not for the faint of heart, here are a few tips we learned from our experience.

• Enjoy the education.  Salesmen will want to show you as many styles as possible and then ask what you like.  Treat that “show” as an education as you learn the differences between Berber and Kilim rugs, traditional versus contemporary, and hand-knotted versus printed, etc.  If you have a culture, color, or pattern in mind, let the salesmen know.  But if you don’t even know enough to ask (That would be us), allow the salesmen to share what they know with you.  You’ll never regret this hands-on, right-in-front-of-you parade of culture and history.  (It was one of the best learning days we had in Morocco.)
• 

  Stacked to the ceiling, hand-woven rugs in Marrakech.

  Narrow your choices down to seven rugs, then five, then three.  It’s hard to send rugs back to the shelves, but do it. And do it carefully. You may not be able to see a rejected rug again if the sales people put it back in a piled-high stack in another room. Narrowing your choices helps you eliminate rugs you can live without so you can focus on just a few.

• Ask the price but know that the quoted price is not the final one.  Offer less — as much as half of what the asking price is.  But be willing to move back up.  You want to honor the workmanship by paying for the hours spent in design and weaving.  But you also want to pay what’s fair for both of you.
• Negotiate shipping.  Sometimes shipping is included; sometimes not.  Ask.  If you’d rather not pay for shipping, see if the shop can roll up your rug, bind it, and add a handle to the package to carry it onto the plane.  You can save money by taking it yourself, but it may not be worth the effort.  (We bought 4 rugs, had them shipped and never looked back.)
• Mark your goods.  A reputable rug dealer may ask you to initial your rug on the back near the edge.  If you do, you’ll know when you get home that the rug shipped to your door is indeed the one you selected.

Admiring this dramatic but simple rug with woven symbols are three shoppers from California.

One thing’s for sure.  You learn a lot about culture, regional patterns, and salesmanship from the best sales people in the city.  And, if you’re lucky, you’ll make friends at places you’ll want to come back to.  Buying rugs from reputable dealers can be one of the most memorable experiences of a stay in Marrakech — or anywhere in Morocco, for that matter.

Explaining that diamond shapes represent females, this tour guide in the Ourika Valley helped us understand the history of rug making in Morocco.

Click on Marvelous Morocco for more posts on this fascinating country and its culture.

For more pictures from Morocco, check us out on Flickr.

There’s nothing dark and mysterious in the medina of Marrakech, especially if you’re in the apparel section.  Shoe stalls literally screamed color.

Cramming hand-made leather slippers onto the walls of tiny nooks must take patience and skill, but every shoe stall was packed to overflowing.

All lined up: Yellow shoes in the Marrakech medina

From pom-poms to fancy stitches to pointy toes, the shoes of Marrakech were not to be denied. And yellow ones took center stage in many displays.  My favorite:  the ones made of cut-up rugs, or at least that what they looked like to me!  But all were picture-worthy (if you could get permission to snap away)!

For more on Marvelous Morocco, click here.

Old meets new as a man in traditional Moroccan dress chats with a friend in motorcycle attire.

We’re people watchers (especially when we travel), fascinated by how people work, worship, and live in countries other than our own.  And in Marrakech, how people move from one place to another was in stark contrast to how we get around in the U.S.  Rarely did we see cars in lanes (lines on the street were merely a suggestion in some places), and ingenuity ruled the day as far as transportation went.  People got around any way they could — from carts to motorcycles to bikes to skate boards.  Here are a few glimpses of transportation, Marrakech style.

Horse-drawn carriages

Not just for tourists in Jemaa el-Fnaa.  Locals hopped on, too.

Donkeys with carts

Piled high and to the breaking point.

Donkeys alone

Waiting to deliver the goods, a donkey stands tethered in a Marrakech marketplace.

Carts piled high

Adding a third wheel actually doubles what you can haul!

Carts piled low

Have flatbed, will deliver — open and airy transportation, for sure.

And carts filled to overflowing!

No comment needed.  We have no idea how people negotiate mile-high loads!

Walking gets you there. 

Ladies at Koutoubia Mosque get around by foot — possibly the most expedient way in crowded tourist areas.

And so does riding.

A cyclist whizzing by?  Not following the lanes?  Just another day in the streets of the medina.

But at the end of the day, a cart can be anything you want it to be.

For more of Marvelous Morocco, check it out here!

Birds-eye view of the Marrakech plaza known as Jemaa el-Fnaa.

If you enjoyed seeing the Marrakech medina — that dizzy meld of colorful goods in tiny shops — then you’ll love passing through the giant plaza to get there.  But caution:  you’ll stop and stare. A lot.

The name, Jemaa el-Fnaa (sometimes spelled Djemma el F’na) means “assembly of the dead,” since it’s been the site of public executions since 1050.  In all the world, Jemaa el-Fnaa could be one of the most memorable public squares you’ll ever see.

A lady applies henna designs to the hands of a customer in a temporary booth on the plaza.

During the day, it’s a market place where hawkers of all things Moroccan set out hand carved camels, rugs, and pottery.

A seller of carved wooden camels waits for buyers in Jemaa el-Fnaa.

Carts filled with produce file past you, making deliveries or selling to customers right on the spot.

But come 5:00 or so in the evening, and Jemaa el-Fnaa starts puts on its party hat.  Vendors open up big green tents showing off rows and rows of colorful fruit and trinkets tourists love.

Stalls open up offering fruit and tourist trinkets on the plaza known as Jemaa el-Fnaa.

Fruit stall No. 18 with tidy rows of bottled water, oranges and other tropical fruits.

Looking like a patchwork quilt, rows of nuts and dates wait for customers.

And sellers of live snails offer you a to-go cup so you can steam ’em at home.

A seller of snails ready to scoop up a ladle full for you.

Need a bigger meal? Men in green tented stalls fire up the grills offering cooked meats with sides of couscous, tagine vegetables, and olives, of course.

You’re not in Kansas anymore: heads and meat ready for purchase in Marrakech!

The real party, though, is center stage where monkey handlers beckon you to come in closer.  Not to worry.  A few dirhams is all it takes for a photo as close – or as far away – as you care to be.

A monkey handler shows off for the camera in Jemaa el-Fnaa.

Snake handlers lay out their best cobras and patterned slitherers sure to elicit an “ooh, ah,” or more likely “I’m not coming any closer” from the crowd.

At dusk, the cobras come out.

“Heads up. Tourists are watching!”

This is as close as I wanted to be.

In the background, the thumping vibe of African drums and metal clappers draws you closer to red robed dancers who invite you (most persuasively) to line up and stomp to the beat.  So we did.  Here’s Chef Joanne Weir who brought our group from Culinary Journey in Morocco 2018 to the plaza.  And then, like the good sport she is,  started movin’ and groovin’ Marrakech style.

If you only get one chance to dance in Jemaa el-Fnaa, take it. Chef Joanne Weir did.

On our second visit to Jemaa el-Fnaa, we found an even better place to see this aggregate of sights and sounds:  up top at a restaurant balcony.  For the price of an orange soda, we nabbed premium seats for the unfettered chaos below.

If you’re squeamish in crowds, sit this one out. Go sip hot tea in a posh, beautifully tiled restaurant.  But if you’re looking for sensory overload from hard-driving music, the whoosh of undirected vehicles, foreign foods in outrageous stalls, and people moving willy nilly in and among and around, you have to take in Jemaa el-Fnaa.  Only in Marrakech.

Moroccan musicians performing at Jemaa el-Fnaa

For more information:

Follow us in Morocco by clicking onto Travel Series: Marvelous Morocco.

And to see pictures, head to our Flickr account, Marrakesh album.

Shopping for preserved goods and spices in open bowls: Marrakech medina

No culinary experience in Morroco, especially Chef Joanne Weir’s Culinary Journey, would be complete with a trip to the Marrakech medina.  It’s there that the freshest, most colorful foods are piled high for what is truly a feast for the eyes.  And once you get home, the makings of a feast for all!

It begins outside where donkeys and carts of all shapes and sizes bring in the goods. Everything from spices to herbs to fresh-picked fruits make their way over cobblestone plazas to the open markets or through winding alleyways to markets inside.

Trucking fresh food into the medina on a busy market day.

Herbs by bicycle: Marrakech medina

Spices become art forms as conical shapes in colors of the Mediterranean stand tall awaiting shoppers looking for such delicacies as cumin, coriander, turmeric, and cinnamon.

Cones of spices form a backdrop for open bags garlic and crushed ingredients.

Herbs aren’t packaged in plastic, as we may see in the U. S.  They’re more likely to be found in armloads — thick, green, and aromatic.

Outside the medina, a seller of herbs awaits customers.

Ready for purchase during Ramadan (May 17 to June 14, 2018) are sweet treats for the season.  Of course, those who fast wait until evening to dive into these goodies.

Bowls and platters hold sweets for Ramadan in this medina stall in Marrakech.

Going to the medina with Chef Joanne Weir meant frequenting her favorite places.  Like this booth filled with preserved lemons, onions, and olives of various shapes, colors and sizes literally overflowing their massive bowls.

Olives, lemons, spices, and preserves — a colorful stall in the Marrakech medina.

And if we had needed eggs, we could have bought them . . . with the chickens as well.

Fresh eggs and chickens: Marrakech medina

Rich brown dates begged to be touched — so we bought some and ate them while we walked!

Dates for sale in Marrakech

If you live in the medina, you can bake your homemade bread in community ovens.  (Look closely to see the baker hard at work inside this one pulling out round flatbreads brought to him by residents.)

Community bread oven with baker inside.

Flat breads cooling near one of many community ovens in Marrakech.

Our culinary group counted ourselves lucky to catch this in action:  young men spinning werqa dough (similar to phyllo) used in making pastilla, a meat pie usually filled with pigeon and apricots and topped with powdered sugar and cinnamon.  (But I have to say that the chicken version we cooked later in the week ranked right up there with one of my favorite dishes of Morocco.)

Spinning werqa dough, a dough used for making pastilla.

Every turn in the medina market offered a different glimpse into Moroccan culture and cuisine.  How grateful I was for the opportunity to shop for fresh goods in a truly remarkable place:  the Marrakech medina!

Shopping for fresh fish in the Marrakech medina

— Rusha Sams

For more information:

To view more pictures of Morocco, check out my Flicker account: https://www.flickr.com/photos/placeswesee

And to see more posts on this exotic, fascinating country, click on Marvelous Morocco.

A stall filled with pierced metal lighting in the Marrakech medina.

Shopping is nothing new to Marrakech.  Located at the end of the Salt Road and on the way north to Casablanca and Rabat, visitors have poured into Marrakech for centuries as a place for goods, but mostly a feast for the senses.

I don’t pretend to have seen all of the Marrakech medina, even after three trips.  But I loved what I saw.  From the outside tourist stalls to the winding, skinny unnamed streets that take you past booths filled with everything from antiques to leather goods to basketry and pierced metal lighting, the medina offers an overload of colors, smells, and sounds.

If there’s one piece of advice to pass on, it’s this:  first-timers need a guide.  Negotiating narrow alleyways with sharp turns where stalls can look alike means you can — and probably will — get lost.  After all, you’re rarely focusing on where you’re going.: You’re too busy looking at what’s for sale. My first day in the medina was spent with two women from California, Susan Gaither and Kendra Hodder, who arrived at Jnane Tamsna one day early, as I did, for our Culinary Journey to Morocco with Chef Joanne Weir.

And when you arrive at the medina, there’s more to see than you can imagine.  Like these hands of Fatima, named after the daughter of  the prophet Muhammad.  The hands, our guide told us, are protective signs bringing the owner a sense of safety, happiness, and good luck.

Hands of Fatima offer protection from evil. We all need one, right?

I really had to hold back in this shop offering some of the finest work on inlaid pieces of furniture, hand-painted pottery, and carvings all in rich Moroccan style.

Pottery shops became one of our favorite places as well, but we had a hard time figuring out how to pack blue-and-white painted bowls, platters, and salt cellars into our suitcases to take home.  (Some of us — I’m not saying who —  bought an extra suitcase!)

Lovely painted pottery lined the walls of one stall in the Marrakech medina.

Designer clothing hung over our heads in this shop, but the owner willingly brought pieces down to our level to try on or hold up to see if they would fit.

The designer himself was in this clothing shop to take down any items we wanted to try on.

Our guide, Sharif, took us to a basket place that was touristy, but we didn’t mind.  After all, we thought we’d look pretty sassy carrying a Marrakech tote to this beach this summer.

Our guide, Sharif, shows Kendra Hodder the popular pompom we saw on baskets and shoes.

But my favorite areas of the medina were the souks where artisans work every day but Friday crafting specialty items by hand.  Families sometimes worked together as this one did in Souk Cherratine where bags, poufs, and coats of camel-skin (most expensive) or goat-hide (more reasonably priced) are made.

This young boy helps his father make leather poufs by cutting out the circles for the bottoms.

A maker of leather poufs took time to pose with my friends Susan Gaither and Kendra Hodder from California.

Souk Smata is devoted to traditional leather slippers.  Saffron yellow slippers, we were told, are most popular among adults in Fes.  But we chose some for our grandchildren embellished with pom pom balls.

Yellow slippers all in a row in the Marrakech medina.

Overhead in the dyers souk (Souk des Tenturiers) you dodge shanks of yarn hanging from rafters or bamboo coverings.   Shopkeepers told us this was cactus silk made from the agave plant.  Whatever it was, it took the rich color of the dye quite well.  And it was here that we found men who actually didn’t mind if we took their picture.  One even posed for the “crazy ladies from the U.S.”

Finally, our guide found us a place to sit down — in a carpet shop.  Little did we know that we would spend two hours watching as men rolled out one Berber after another, letting us know regions of origin or weaving techniques or the meaning of the embedded patterns.  But sitting down felt good.  And we bought rugs we didn’t even know we needed. Not only that, a special treat awaited:  hot mint tea! Let the carpet show begin!

In our last souk of the day, Souk Haddadine, blacksmiths and woodworkers plied their trades in small, small spaces.

On the way out, we stopped by an argan oil shop to watch ladies in traditional dress shell argan nuts from the Argania spinosa tree.  The oil is extracted from the nuts and sold in several forms from lotions to pure oil meant to soften your skin.  A great takeaway from Marrakech.

Shelling argan nuts in the Marrakech medina.

Of course, there’s far more in the Marrakech medina.  My next post will feature food (at least the stalls that would allow photos of what they offer) sold within and outside the medina.

A sight to see: the Marrakech medina!

Colorful stalls, sounds of motorcycles whizzing through winding maze-like alleyways, artisans hard at work  — just another day in Marrakech!

— Rusha Sams

For more pictures of Marrakech, check out my Flickr album: Marrakech 2018:  https://www.flickr.com/photos/placeswesee/albums/72157697015074334