If hotel and destination reports aren't your thing feel fee to skip this bit!

The drive to the riad reminded me very much of The Middle East, lots of beige Mercedes-Benz taxis, scooters and crazy driving. I heard Marrakech described as the 'Pink City' and took it with a pinch of salt, but it really is a pinky/orange colour.

The riad in is the Medina so the last bit of the journey is on foot, it's only a couple of minutes but I'd probably never have found it on my own. First impressions of the riad are good, I'm greeted with mint tea and date cookies and everything is very calm and peaceful. And then a loud, young couple make their presence known, she has one of those loud piercing voices that go right through you, they're either watching a film or playing a game but either way they have to raise their voices over the sound track to talk to each other. Annoying. I drink my mint tea, think calming thoughts and wonder if I'm turning into a grumpy old woman...



Thankfully my host returns to escort me to my room which is in the other half of the riad, it's two houses knocked through so everything is nice and peaceful this side and that’s the last I ever hear of them!



The riad has a roof terrace and it's so peaceful and sunny, it's hard to believe you're in the middle of the Medina. All I can hear is bird song and the occasional scooter engine. Then about four o'clock the muezzin starts calling the faithful to prayers, one starts and then he's joined by others, all slightly out of sync. I don't know if they wait for a lead to start or if all their watches are on different times.



I've arranged for dinner in the riad tonight and instead of choosing from the menu I just ask for whatever they recommend. I start with a Moroccan salad selection with warm bread, I'm not too keen on the cauliflower dish but other four, aubergine, courgette, chickpea and sweetened shredded lettuce with sultanas (it sounds odd doesn't it?) are very tasty.

There's actually enough to feed two or three people and about feel guilty wasting a good portion of it but I know I've got two more courses to come yet.

The main course is chicken cooked with olives and preserved lemon in a tagine, and again, it's delicious - I love all things lemon, in fact I'll quite happily eat a lemon like other people would eat an orange, so I eat a piece of the cooked, preserved lemon. Ugh, it tastes like lemony soap... Fortunately the flavour imparted to the finished dish is lemon only! I'd like to say I was healthy and had fruit for dessert... and I sort of did... a baked apple and sliced oranges.
However, both had been poached in spiced sugar syrup until the oranges were a sticky, translucent delight. My dentist may not share my delight with this dish.

I retire to bed early, log onto FT (the F and J deals thread in particular) and start plotting my next trip...

There's an early wakeup call at 0515 with the call for the first prayers of the day but it's actually quite nice lying in bed listening to it and then the bird song. As I'm awake early I decide to go up onto the roof terrace and enjoy the peace of the early morning, my favourite time of day. Breakfast is a traditional affair of crêpes and various jams with café-au-lait.



drink my coffee black these days and I’d forgotten how nice coffee with boiled milk is, I don't know why but it tastes completely different to a latte.
I'm having a lazy relaxing day today and apart from trying out the hammam this afternoon I'm doing nothing other than lounging around on the terrace reading.

The riad has a tiny hammam which I thought I'd try out rather than go to one of the public ones. I get called up by one of the staff and it suddenly occurs to me that the wood smoke I've been smelling in the air all morning isn't a cooking fire but the hammam being heated up.

I'm shown to a tiny changing room and a local lady tells me what to do, well, she speaks about 10 words of English and I speak about 10 words of French but we muddle through. It's a rather surreal experience being as naked as the day you were born whilst a complete stranger scrubs you down; thankfully spending half my life in the military has knocked any sense of modesty out of me!

She leaves me to soak up the heat for few minutes before returning and applying savon noire or black soap (which is actually a kind of amber colour.) After rinsing me off she proceeds to try and scrub my skin off with sandpaper... OK, it isn't really sandpaper but it felt like it at the time! Everything I'd read about hammams said this has such an exfoliating effect that you wouldn't believe how much dead skin was coming off. It's true! Then it's rinsing time again, followed by the rassoul mud, and again I'm left to relax in the warmth for a few minutes whilst mud does its work. A final rinse and I'm ready to go! I head back to my room and apply some body lotion and check my skin hasn't been sandpapered away - it is incredibly soft and smooth though. I could get used to this level of pampering!

I've opted to eat at the riad again tonight and I'm asked if I want to dine on the roof terrace, it sounds great so I say yes.
Unfortunately by 8pm it's dark and the tables are set up where the lighting is all at floor level... my tagine of lamb with almonds sounds great sizzling away, it smells delicious and tastes good too but I have no idea what it looks like!

I take my coffee and book back to the inner courtyard where there's some light!





Next morning sees another breakfast on the roof terrace before I set off for a tour of the old city and the souk. I've booked a local tour guide through the riad and a very dapper, older gentleman duly appears to walk me round the sights.

My guide is very knowledgeable and it makes a huge difference seeing it with somebody who really knows the history of Marrakech and Morocco. I've read a lot about western women being hassled in Morocco but not once does anyone bother me; maybe it's because I'm with a local guide (who seems to know everyone!) or because they're very used to tourists here, I don't know? I did take the advice of a friend who's travelled in Morocco before and I'm dressed in a fairly modest fashion, loose linen trousers and a long sleeved cotton shirt (which is not only cool but also keeps the sun off and saves me looking like a lobster later.) My guide discusses the history of the Moroccan people and their Berber heritage, he's adamant they're NOT Arabs, this is obviously a subject he feels very strongly about. We visit the Ben Yusef Madrassa and the Saardian tombs as well as the Koutoubia Mosque tower. Again, my guide is very knowledgeable and really knows his history. Our final stop is an art gallery - turns out my guide is also an artist and these are his works! They're all very modern and not what I expected to see in Morocco. We walk through the Souk and despite telling my guide at the start that I'm not interested in shopping but he still takes me to a perfume and herb shop and a carpet shop. I always feel a little bit guilty that the shopkeepers are spending time showing me their wares and telling me the history of the carpets when I have absolutely no intention of buying something. My guide seems to know the shop owners very well and guess he probably earns commission on anything bought - I hope his next clients buy lots! Our final stop is the Djemma el Fna, the big square at the entrance of the Medina, which was originally where the trade caravans met and is now a mix of market stalls, food stalls, entertainers with snakes and monkeys. Seeing animals used like this always makes me a bit sad but on the whole the animals I've seen in Marrakech, mostly cats, donkeys and horses, seem to cared for reasonable well.

Sorry for the lack of photos, I was taking pictures with my iPad this trip and the bag I took on the tour just wasn't big enough - note to self: get a camera!