The next morning, Fouzia made us a wonderful Moroccan breakfast with bread, msemen (fried crepe-ish thingies that are the bomb), omelette, and coffee. And of course we washed it down with whiskey berbere (mint tea).
Then we set off to accomplish our list of sights! Right off the bat it was apparent that the hecklers and touts were taking their game to a whole new level here in Marrakech. If you so much as glance at their wares they assume that you have a personal obligation to purchase. If you start walking away they yell, "no that way is closed!" (It never was). They offer you directions but in our experience they always have other motives. (It was fine to ask directions as long as you asked someone who wasn't offering). We were slowly shunted from one heckler to another down the street like a soccer ball making its way down the field until we made our way to the Ben Youssef Medersa.
A medersa is a boarding house where Arabic students would live while they were attending a nearby university. Frequently medersas were treated as opportunities to show off the city's wealth and artistic ability so many of them are sumptuously decorated. And the best one is the Ben Youssef.
It was established by the "Black Sultan" Abou El Hassan (1331-49) and rebuilt in the 1560s. It contains 132 little bedrooms which surround a gorgeously tiled and carved central courtyard. We had lots of fun running around and taking pictures through the little windows.
Our next stop was the Almoravid Koubba, which was unfortunately closed for restoration so we had to content ourselves with looking through the iron bars which surround it. It may not be much to look at from the outside, but the Koubba isn't only the oldest building in Morocco, it is also the inspiration for most Moroccan and Andalusian architecture. What remains is merely a kiosk or outhouse of what was once a huge mosque. It was built in the 1100s.
We then went across the square to the Marrakech Museum, which is housed in a palace which once belonged to Mahdi Mnebbi, the defense minister for Moulay Abdelziz (1894-1908). The exhibitions themselves were nice but not jaw dropping. The restoration of the palace that held them, however, was remarkable, with gorgeous zillege tiled fountains, courtyard and hammam. The central courtyard had an enormous brass lamp hung from the ceiling--so large that it would have filled our entire living room back home.
After lunch, we went to the Heritage Museum -- an unexpected doorway in the center of the Berber Souk. Rachael had read about it on travel blogs but Nate didn't have high expectations. Boy, was he wrong! While the Marrakech museum was pretty sparse in the artifacts, the heritage museum was crammed full of interesting furniture, carpets, tools, baskets, clothing, jewelry, art, and manuscripts made by the nomadic Berber tribes. There were also bookshelves full of interesting art history and culture books you could borrow, and couches you could snuggle in to read at--we spent over an hour educating ourselves on the different tribal rugs and tile patterns. However, the most interesting thing about the museum is that it was created only two years ago by a the Alouani Bibi family, who own the 17th century riad in which the museum is built. For many years they had collected antiques and they finally decided to restore their riad and display their possessions to the general public. The museum is a wonderful place and one of the highlights of our time in Marrakech.
After resting at home for a while we ventured out for dinner. We went to a cheap place called Chez Bahia which served us Berber soup and a tasty meat pie called pastilla.
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