3 Moroccan Meals You Should 

One thing I love most about travelling is getting to taste the local cuisine wherever I go. Having just spent 2 weeks in Morocco, these were 3 yummy staple dishes that the country had to offer, and that I recommend you try should you wash up on Moroccan shores! All of the following were meals I had on my Busabout 8 day tour of Marrakech & the Sahara.

Chicken Tagine

Chicken Tagine is basically chicken, potatoes, peas, carrots, chickpeas, and sometimes other vegetables all mixed up in a natural chicken gravy. Sometimes with Tagine they will make a little dome of potatoes, with the meat hidden underneath. For some reason it always tastes better when they do this!

Vegetable Cous Cous

Cous Cous in very popular in Morocco, with most cafes and restaurants serving a variety of Cous Cous dishes pretty much everywhere you go. With fruit & veg being a major export of Morocco (Agriculture is the largest industry in the country) I always like to opt for the veggie Cous Cous. There are so many fresh vegetables on offer in Morocco it would be a shame not to take advantage of all the fresh produce on offer!

Moroccan Chickpea Soup

If you’re eating out somewhere like Djemaa El Fna in Marrakech (the main square), you’d be as well getting a starter as well as a main meal. Food in Morocco is super cheap. A lot of places offer you soup for 5 Dirham (0.36 GBP/ 0.44 EUR). Chickpea soup is usually what’s on offer. Sometimes I do find the soup a bit watery in the cheaper places, but you can hardly complain considering the price!

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Marrakech Tour: Sights and Attractions

Marrakech is clearly a large city divided into old quarters – the Medina – and the new town – Guéliz.

The focus of the whole city is Djemaa el Fna, a large open space full of entertainers and food sellers at the heart of the Medina. Along the alleyways adjacent to Djemaa el Fna, lie some of the most remarkable landmarks of Marrakech. North of Djemaa el Fna are the souks and the Sidi Ben Youssef Mosque, the main mosque after the Koutoubia. South of Djemaa el Fna, you have the Saadian Tombs and an area full of palaces and the ethnographic museum Maison Tiskiwine.

Another popular sight in Marrakech is the tour of the many gardens. These include the Jardin Majorelle, near Bab Doukkala, the Ménara, a large pool set in a large olive grove and the Agdal, another pleasant olive grove. Across the Oued Issil to the northeast of Marrakech, lies the Palmery dotted with oases.



Djemaa el Fna
 Djemaa el Fna: The most famous landmark in Marrakech, where large crowds gather to watch groups of acrobats, drummers, snake charmers, story tellers, dancers and many other performers.
Djemaa el Fna is the most famous landmark in Marrakech, a place sure to involve you so effortlessly you will come back again and again.

It is an open space in the heart of the city where a long-established ritual takes place. Large crowds of onlookers – both locals and tourists – gather around to mingle together and watch groups of acrobats, drummers, snake charmers, story tellers, dancer, comedians and fairground acts.

Read more about Djemaa el Fna

The Koutoubia
 The Koutoubia: A seventy metres Almohad tower that dominates the Marrakech skyline, rising from the low-rise buildings of the old town and the plains of the north.
The Koutoubia is to Marrakech what the Statue of Liberty is to New York and the Eiffel Tower is to Paris.

Nearly seventy metres in height and visible for miles afar, the Koutoubia is a landmark that dominates the whole of Marrakech, rising from the low-rise buildings of the old town and the plains of the north.

Originally built by the early Almohads, this is the oldest and most complete of three great Almohad towers – the other two are the Hassan Tower in Rabat and the Giralda in Seville.

Read more about the Koutoubia

The Souks of Marrakech
 Marrakech Souks: Vast, colourful and varied, with small squares devoted to specific crafts and products.
The souks of Marrakech stretch immediately after Djemaa el Fna, along Rue Souk Smarine, a long, covered street. At the end of this street are two lanes: Souk el Kbir and Souk el Attarin – Follow the alleyways and you will discover small squares devoted to specific crafts and products.

At first sight, the souks may seem vast and bewildering. However, with a good map it is perfectly possible to navigate the souks on your own. If you’d rather use some help, there are no shortage of offers from guides, both official and non-official.


 Almoravid Koubba: The only Almoravid structure still standing in Morocco, with a design that is at the root of all Moroccan architecture.
Opposite the Ben Youssef Mosque, on the southern side of Place de la Kissaria, is the Almoravid Koubba.

At first glance, it looks a very simple building with variously shaped doors and windows. With a closer look, you will understand the significance and fascination of this monument, for it is the only Almoravid building still standing intact in Morocco!

Dating back to the reign of Sultan Ali Ben Youssef (1107 – 1143), the Almoravid Koubba probably formed part of the ablution facilities of a nearby mosque. The style of the monument is at the root of all Moroccan architecture, subsequently used in all Almohad and Merenid designs.

Climb down the stairs to get to the level of the Dome and view its ceilings. Note the unique range of Almoravid motifs – the pine cones, acanthus and palm leaves and the powerful expression of form in the square and star-shaped octagons at the dome’s interior support.


 The Marrakech Museum: A magnificient late nineteenth-century palace that houses traditional and contemporary exhibitions of Moroccan art and sculpture.
The Marrakech Museum is housed in a magnificent late-nineteenth century palace, Dar Mnebbi, on the west side of Place de la Kissaria.

The palace was originally built by Mehdi Mnebbi (1894-1908), Moroccan ambassador to London. It was then bought by T’Hami el Glaoui, the famous Pasha of Marrakech during the French protectorate. Restored in 1997, it houses today both traditional and contemporary exhibitions of Moroccan arts and sculpture.


The process involves tanners treading and rinsing skin i

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The Djameaa El Fna

The Djameaa El Fna

there's nowhere in Morocco like the Dejemaa El Fna - no place that so effortlessly involves you and keeps you coming back. By day it's basically a market, with a few snake charmers, storytellers and an occasional troupe of acrobats. In the evening it becomes a whole carnival of musicians, clowns and street entertainers. when you arrive in Marrakesh, and after you've found a room, come out here and you'll soon be immersed in the ritual: wandering round, squatting amid the circles of onlookers, giving a dirham or two as your contribution. If you want a respite, you can move over to the rooftop terraces of the Café de France or the Restaurant Argana to gaze over the square and admire the frame of the koutoubia.
what you are part of is a strange process. Some say that tourism is now vital ti the Djemaa's survival, yet apart from the snake charmers, monkey handlers and water vendors (all of whom live by posing for photographs), there's little that has compromised itself for the west. In many ways it actually seems the opposite . Most of the people gathered into circles round the performers are Moroccans - Berbers from the villages and lots of kids.There is no way that any tourist is going to have a tooth pulled by one of the dentists here, no matter how neat the piles of molars displayed on their square of carpet. Nor are you likely to use the scribes or street barbers or , above all, understand the convoluted tales of the storytellers, round whom are gathered perhaps the most animated, all-male crowds in the square.
Nothing of this, though, matters very much.There is a fascination in the remedies of the herb doctors, with their bizarre concoction spread out before them. There are performers, too, whose appeal is universal. The Jemaa Elfna square's acrobats, itinerants from Tazeroualt, have for years supplied the European circuses - though they are perhaps never so spectacular as here, thrust forward into multiple somersaults and contortions in the late afternoon heat. There are child boxers and sad-looking trained monkeys, clowns and chleuh boy dancers - their routines, to the climactic jarring of cymbals, totally sexual (and traditionally an invitation to clients).
And finally, the Djemaa's enduring sound - the dozens of musicians playing all kinds of instruments. late at night, when only a few people are left in the square, you encounter individual players, plucking away at their ginbris, the skin-covered two-or three-string guitars.Earlier in the evening, there are full groups: the Aissaoua, playing oboe-like ghaitahs next to the snake charmers; the Andalucian-style groups, with their ouds and violins; and the back Gnaoua, trance-healers who beat out hour-long hypnotic rhythms with iron clanging hammers and pound tall drums with long curved sticks.
if you get interested in the music there are two small sections on opposite sides of the square where stall sell recorded cassettes : one is near the entrance to the souks and the other is on the corner with the recently pedestrianized Rue Bab Agnaou. Most of these are by Egyptian or Algerian Rai bands, the pop music that dominates Morocco radio, but if you ask they'll play you Berber music from the Atlas, classic Fassi pieces, or even Gnaoua music - which sounds even stranger on tape, cut off only by the end of the one side and starting off almost identically on the other. These stalls apart, and those of the nut roasters, whose massive braziers line the immediate entrance to the potter's souk, the market activities of the Djemaa are mostly pretty mundane.


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