Menara Gardens, Marrakech

The Menara Gardens are a welcome place to escape for a while from the noise and the dust of the city.

These beautiful gardens lie at the foot of the Atlas Mountains, which make them an ideal place to take photos with the snow-capped mountains in the background.

The gardens were laid out in around 1130 by the Sultan Abd al-Mu’min and are named after the beautiful pavilion with its green pyramidal roof. The pavilion stands on the banks of a huge artificial lake that measures 200 meters by 150 meters. The building was renovated in the Alawi style in 1869, and was used as a summer residence.

The pavilion and the lake are surrounded by orchards and orange groves. Everything is irrigated by the ancient underground channels called khettera that brings water from the distant mountains. Water is pumped into the pool by an early type of hydraulic system.

The orchards are full of olive and fruit trees and you will probably see fruit-pickers hard at work on wooden ladders leaning up against the trunks. According to legend, the lake waters bring good luck, so locals often come out to fill pitchers, but it is inadvisable to drink the water.