La Maison de Marrakech (La Maison Dar Saada Marrakech) [Review]

My taxi dropped me at the edge of the main square, where a young man was waiting to guide me to the hotel. It was just becoming dusk, and there was loud music playing in the crowded square, smoke was rising from grills, there was a complex combination of smells coming from the rows of food stalls, there were horses and carts, performers of various kinds, including snake charmers. There was a very primal feel to this place.

I was eventually led down a narrow alleyway to a large wooden door, several knocks were made on the door with the knocker, and then I was ushered into the hotel.

The first night I was told that breakfast was served starting from 7:30 until 9:30, but in reality breakfast was rarely served before 8:30. Many guests were comfortable enough to wear their pjs to breakfast in the hotel courtyard (me included).

Throughout the day, music played in the courtyard. I am not sure what it was, but I suppose most of it had a kind of bellydancing, snake charming type of sound to it. At the same time, there was the combined fragrance of incense, barbequed meats and complex spices, and the sounds of the street, which included the clipclop of hooves, the occasional taptaptap on the big wooden door of the hotel, chanting or unusual vocalizations, (sometimes at strange hours), and occasionally a violent shrieking exchange between a man and a woman.

[Music clip is taken from the end of The Girl on the Bridge].

[Photos: right arrow]