Vidéos Visits Marrakech

Marrakech, known as the red city or the city ochre, is located in the centre of Morocco, in the Interior of the land, at the foot of the Atlas mountains.

The nickname of the red city refers to the red color of a large part of its buildings and houses.

The city was founded in 1071 by Youssef Ibn Tachfin as-Sanhaji, at the head of the Berber empire of the Almoravids.

In the past, the Morocco was known in the East under the name of Marrakech (always of news in Iran); Morocco named itself the deformation of the Portuguese pronunciation of Marrakech: Marrocos.

Marrakech has 928 850 inhabitants, according to the Census of 2014, spread over an area of 230 km2. The population density reaches 350 inhabitants per hectare in the Medina. It is the fourth largest city of the Morocco after Casablanca, Fez and Tangier.

The city is divided into two separate parts : historic (ten kilometers of enclosure) and the new town including the main districts are called Guéliz and Hivernage, Douar Askar, Sidi Youssef Ben Ali, Mouhamid, Daoudiat. The Guéliz is now commercial downtown. It was founded by the French during the protectorate. The Hivernage district focus of many resorts. In recent years, the city grows on the outskirts, notably to the West with the appearance of new residential development as for the region of Targa or extension of avenue Mohammed VI, or Tamansourt in the north.

Permanent theatre stage, the Jemaa-el-Fna square has what fascinate, day and night. Most alive district of Marrakech, close to the souks, it is the tourist heart. All the walks in the medina begin and end here. At 5 p.m., the animation starts and Jemaa-el-Fna becomes black world. Snake charmers, fortune tellers, music groups and, in the evening, dozens of itinerant restaurants run the show under the dumbfounded gaze of onlookers. Located around café terraces offer magnificent points of view on the Jemaa-el-Fna square, particularly to the sunset.

It took forty years to the french painter Jacques Majorelle (1886-1962) to create, with passion, this enchanting place, today in the heart of the red city.
In its shadowy, we walk in the middle of trees and exotic plants whose origin is a dream, it runs along paths and water to the refreshing murmur basins filled with water lilies and lotus ; we hear in the fragrances here and here sweet air the rustling of leaves and the chirping of the birds came to y refuge, stop, in the bend of a road, in front of a building with Moorish charm or in the Art Deco style, surprisingly painted primary colors very vivid dominated by intense blue seen in the Atlas by the artist. It is appeased and bewitched by the harmony of this lush and lively table where the senses are gently asked to offer a magical walk, out of the busy city yet so close, inside protected by the high walls of Earth, out of time.

Open every day of the year.

The Museum Dar Si Saïd is a museum located in the medina in Marrakech, close to the Bahia Palace, entirely devoted to the Moroccan handicraft of wood. This mansion was built at the end of the 19th century by Si Saïd, brother of Ba Ahmed, Chamberlain of sultan Moulay Hassan Ier and grand vizier of Moulay Abdelaziz, to serve as residence. Dar Si Saïd was converted into a Museum in 1932 by the Administration of Fine Arts.

Most of this regional Museum collections comes from Marrakech and South and particularly the Tensift, of the Souss, High Atlas, of the Anti-Atlas, of Bani, of the Tafilalet. It is homogeneous sets of woodwork, jewelry of South, pottery and ceramics, weapons, costumes and a rich collection of rugs and weavings from the South, and some archaeological finds including the tub in marble of the beginning of the 15th century.