Marrakech

21-22 /06/2019: Marrakech
Km travelled today/sum: 198km / 6997km
Sun shine, 28 degrees, country road/mountain pass

We got up quite early to avoid the heat. Today we had 200km with a mountain pass, so we were not really sure how long it would take us.

The road was really good and there was hardly any traffic about that early. Here are some pictures from when we started to climb the High Atlas Mountains.

 

We arrived before it got too hot. We parked the bikes in the court yard and settled into the room. At night we had home cooked Tajine for dinner, yummy.

The next day we visited the ‘Jardin Majorelle’, a garden created by Jacques Majorelle, taking over 40 years to complete. To our surprise, there was a long queue, but there was shade, so it wasn’t too bad.

When we entered the garden, it felt like a different world. There were still plenty of people, but the surroundings had something calming, different from the hustle and bustle outside. Here are some pictures from the garden.

 

 

 

 

It took us a while to meander through the garden. From here we visited the Berber museum, unfortunately taking pictures was prohibited so you’ll have to visit it yourselves 😉. I think the explanations were quite interesting, however everything was in French, so there was a lot of guessing involved.
After the Berber museum we visited the ‘Koutoubia Mosque’. Why did we check it out? Legend has it that it is the mosque that had not been built correctly facing mecca. Hence it was flattened and rebuilt… Since we couldn’t enter the mosque as non-muslim, we walked around and took some pictures.

Our next point of interest was the ‘Sadiam Tombs, build in the late 1500’. The tombs hold the graves of the Sultans family and in the garden are the graves of servants. We were using google maps which showed us where the tomb was, but not the entry. Running around the tomb, we found two dutch girls, who had had the same problem, but asked a guy where the entry was. So we followed them past the many coffee shops surrounding us…

… and there it was! Finally! The Entry.

The walk way to the tomb itself was pretty narrow, but when you turned the corner, a lush shady green garden appeared.


There are three chambers all up and they are all impressive. This is the largest chamber, called the room with 12 columns. Here we are in front of the room.

The craftmanship for the wood, tiles and stucco work was amazing. Below some pictures trying to capture this amazing work.

 

After the tombs, we went home and got ready for an early departure tomorrow morning. We will go over the Tiz N Test pass, which will be the end of early starts, since the temperature on the other side of the high Atlas is said to be below 30 degrees.

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