Amazing Medina in Marrakesh, Morocco, Marrakech, Morocco

Despite not so good food on the plane, we enjoyed timely and unventful travels to Marrakesh, Morocco. With multiple connections and checked bags, I’m always grateful for smooth travels. Our biggest delay occurred after our arrival at the very nice new terminal. Our driver was not there to pick us up and take us to our riad in the Marrakesh medina!

Suman had reserved a ride through the riad in which we were staying, and after a few phones calls and 45 minutes of waiting, our driver finally showed up. Who knows what took so long as the airport isn’t that far away from the old city center, also known as a medina.

A medina is a specific city section found in many North African cities which are typically walled with many narrow and maze-like streets. Marrakesh medina is no exception. Thick-walled, interconnecting buildings lined cobblestone streets which zigzagged in every direction. Once designed to confuse invaders, the Marrakesh medina now just confuses tourists!

Thankfully we had a driver that knew the location of our riad, as we would have been hard pressed to find it with few streets signs and derbs (or alleyways) pointing in every direction. The car was too large to make it down the narrow streets, so we were met by a baggage porter who wheeled our luggage in an old cart to Riad Karmela where we were staying for one night. ...... (follow the instructions below for accessing the rest of this article).