Tours in Marrakesh

Marrakesh sits on a dry plain with the High Atlas along the skyline. The Almoravids founded it in the 1070s, and the old city is still a walled oval of red pisé, nineteen kilometres of it. Cars barely fit. Scooters do.

Everything orients on Jemaa el-Fnaa. By day it is orange-juice carts and snake charmers; after dark, food stalls, storytellers and Gnawa drummers. UNESCO listed the square itself, not a building on it.

The monuments are a short walk apart, and each belongs to a different century.

• Koutoubia — the mosque of the 1150s and its 77 m minaret, finished around 1195, seen from outside only.
• Bahia Palace — a vizier's courtyard house of painted cedar ceilings, and the coolest floor in the medina at midday.
• Saadian Tombs — walled up by Moulay Ismail and not reopened until 1917, now a queue in a small garden.
• The souks — laid out by trade, from Semmarine's main artery to the dyers' lane and the tanneries at Bab Debbagh.
• Majorelle — a painter's garden begun in 1923, cobalt walls and cactus in Gueliz, long queues without a timed ticket.
• Gueliz and the Palmeraie — the protectorate new town, galleries and wine lists, and palm groves beyond the walls.

Past the walking, the city sells its hands. There are workshops in argan oil, rug weaving, tea and tilework, most run by cooperatives outside the walls. Hammams go from a bucket in a neighbourhood room to a spa with a menu.

Day trips from Marrakesh go further than from anywhere else in Morocco. The Ourika valley and the Atlas villages are an hour out, Imlil and the Toubkal trailhead ninety minutes. Ouzoud's waterfalls take three hours, Essaouira much the same. Merzouga needs two nights.

Agafay, half an hour south-west, is stony hammada rather than sand, so the desert dinners there are a good evening and not the Sahara. It photographs better than it walks.

Practical

• Heat. July and August routinely pass 38C. The day that works is an early start, a long shaded middle and a second wind after six.
• From the airport. Menara is 6 km from the medina, fifteen minutes by petit taxi. Agree the fare or insist on the meter first.
• The square at night. Photographs of the performers are paid for, and the price is decided after the shutter.
• Haggling. Souk prices open high and settle near half. The state craft centre marks fixed prices and makes a useful first walk.
• Being helped. A stranger saying the way is closed, or that a Berber market runs today only, is opening a sale that ends at a carpet.
• Prices. Mint tea runs ten to twenty dirhams, a tagine in a medina restaurant several times that.