Experience the exotic sights, smells, and sounds of Marrakech, a thrumming, vivid city in Western Morocco, famous for its imperial past and Moorish minaret of the 12th-century Koutoubia Mosque.
On your private tour, you will:
- Discover the fascinating roots of this former Imperial City with its grand dome-topped mosques, towering minarets, lavish gardens, and medieval walls;
- Enjoy the buzz of the Bazaar and its maze of cobbled alleyways where crowds gather around stalls of richly woven rugs, coffee pots, jewellery, and shawls;
- Admire the Royal Residences at Bahia Palace still used by Morocco’s King as you explore the luxuriously appointed ornate rooms that once housed the Vizier Ahmed’s 4 wives and 24 concubines;
- Marvel at the Ancient Tombs - a stark contrast to the palace's opulence;
- Wander through the crumbling remains of nearby Badi Palace once home to royalty;
- Explore the spooky atmosphere of the darkened necropolis of ancient Marrakech’s mausoleums, the elaborately carved Saadian Tombs;
- Stroll past beautiful mosaic-clad riads and leafy courtyards as you soak up Marrakech’s ambience;
- Visit the famed towering spire of the Koutoubia minaret from which the melodic calls to prayer sound five times daily, to draw worshipers into the Mosque.
Founded around 1062 by the Almoravids, Marrakech has been home to Berbers since the Neolithic era, and is one of Morocco’s four Imperial Cities, along with Méknes, Fes and Rabat. By the 12th century, it had become the capital of the Almohad caliphate sprawling across Africa and encompassing Spain.
During this period, Marrakech was blessed with its thick, red sandstone walls - an architectural influence carved with great domes and arches that blended styles from the Sahara and West Africa to create a unique, fine-looking settlement dubbed the “Red City”.
Over the centuries, Marrakech flourished as a cultural, religious and trading centre, the home of wealthy sultans, chic French colonists, vast palatial complexes and opulent mansions. Today, the French language is still spoken by many Moroccans.
During the 1950s and 1960s, Marrakech became a Shangri-La for curious pleasure-seekers, beat poets, writers and rock legends who sought spiritual enlightenment on a pilgrimage along the so-called hippy trail. Today this Kasbah city evokes a magical mix of an aged past and forward-thinking present, blending European influences and moderate ideologies with a proud Islamic heart that still beats to an ancient rhythm.
Marrakech may be home to some of the world’s most sumptuous small hotels yet it uses a thousand-year-old irrigation system and it is these seductive contrasts that make it such an alluring city.