Postcards from Marrakech, Marrakech, Morocco

We are on the road to Marrakech. You can almost hear everyone humming the Crosby, Still & Nash song to themselves …

After passing through an unremarkable landscape, our first glimpse of Marrakech is of a medina in the distance, with a mass of rooftop satellite dishes offering a stark contrast to both the sand colored walls and the brilliant blue sky.

Downtown Marrakech felt a little like Casablanca, with its rounded front buildings and general noise and grime. We are once again booked into a riad in the old city. Driving in any Moroccan medina is a true art form, but again Mohamed demonstrates his skill, and in spite of another GPS failure, traverses the narrow passageways to get us close to our destination. I am happy to be traveling sans luggage as the rest of my party carts mounds of luggage through a small souk and to the door of the Riad Adriana.

We are met in the courtyard with tea and a tray of sweets, and seated on cushions around a center fountain filled with rose petals. I take note of the vases of roses and huge bowls of oranges in the corners of the courtyard. I start nibbling on a second cookie when we are ushered to our rooms.

Unbelievable! Having just checked out of the Palais des Roses, we find ourselves in a true palace of roses … there are rose petals scattered everywhere in our rooms! There’s another tray of sweets and fruit on the small wooden table, along with a welcome bottle of water. Once again, I am struck by the stark differences in hospitality between the large hotels - which didn’t even have water or menus in the rooms - and the riads which see to every potential need, even those that you didn’t realize you had … ...... (follow the instructions below for accessing the rest of this article).