Many years ago, when I was a young mom, I read a book called A Street in Marrakech, by Elizabeth Warnock Fernea. This book is such a vivid description of life in the Marrakech medina that I almost felt like I had experienced it myself.
It certainly succeeded in giving me a desire to go there and see firsthand the places she talked about.
Staying in a riad was a good start, I suppose. It was just too bad our experience couldn't have been more typical of the famous warm Moroccan hospitality. Warm our room was not, and the hospitality was tepid at best, but as I said to Dave, at least now I know what lies behind the walls lining the streets of the medina.
And no doubt about it, the riad was beautifully constructed and maintained.
Our room was on the second floor, and we stepped out onto the railed balcony encircling and looking down on the courtyard. In the summer, it would be lovely, as it is open to the outdoors, but in December, there was a canopy of some sort rigged up to keep the heat in and the rain out. There was a beautifully tiled pool or fountain, but at this time of year it was empty.
When I booked our room in this riad, I made sure to request the breakfast option, but this too was a disappointment. The previous evening our host had made some jokes about breakfast -- it was served from 4 a.m. to 6 a.m., and so on. The result was that we really were not sure what time we could expect to eat. We figured that 7:30 was a safe bet, and went out to check. But everything was dark and our host was nowhere to be found. He finally showed up, from who knows where, and said he'd have breakfast ready by 8:00. Clearly 8:00 Moroccan time (or perhaps his own personal time) because we weren't served until well after 8:30. The food was disappointing as well -- a true sugar and carb fest: freshly squeezed but sweetened orange juice, white flour pancakes, white bread, white flour sickly sweet cakes and... well, that's it. No fruit, no eggs, just a lot of white dough. The coffee was okay, but barely. Oh well, we figured we would appreciate our tagine lunch that much more.
After a short map session with our host, we set out on foot for Jemaa-el-Fnaa, the main square of the city. The mosque on the left was recommended to us as a landmark, as it was very close to the street of our riad.
We saw a lot of these combo motorcycle/ carts.
I remembered reading about this square in Fernea's book -- particularly about the aggressive snake charmers -- so of course I was on the alert.
At 9:30, the action in the square was just beginning.
My first sighting was not of a snake, but a monkey. This guy was not looking at me when I first saw him, but as I took the photo, he must have felt the vibes or something, because not only did he look up, but he began to follow us. We made a quick getaway, and I realized I would have to be even sneakier than I thought I was being.
It wasn't long before we came across the snake charmer. Somehow I managed to escape his notice.
The next photos are all inside the medina. You could literally spend a whole day wandering around in there, and that is almost what we did. We wanted to buy a few small gifts for people back home, but mostly, we just explored and marveled over the variety of sights, smells and sounds.
One sound that we could not escape was that of motorcycles. Every few minutes -- sometimes every few seconds -- the stream of pedestrians would have to make way for a guy on a motorcycle. There was the odd donkey, but nothing like in Fes. Here, obviously the motorcycle is the way to travel.
I loved these beautiful handpainted wooden items -- cupboards, mirrors, chests. The souks (as the markets are called) are not the place to find cheap stuff, though -- everything seemed priced with tourists in mind, and the vendors were not super eager to bargain.
I had bought some postcards, so after eating, I wrote and addressed them. The next task was to find a place to buy stamps. The man who sold the postcards told me I'd have to go to the post office, so I looked on Google maps and found one almost right next to the restaurant. We found it with no trouble, but the door was locked. There was a guy standing outside, and he asked me (in French) what I wanted. "Je veux acheter des timbres," I told him. He went to the door and gestured to a guy inside, who then came and opened the door to let me in. I told him what I wanted, and he went to a little table, unlocked a drawer and pulled out some stamps. He took my cash and put the money in his pocket. Then he walked me to the door, unlocked it, pointed to the mailbox, and bade me adieu. Very strange! 
Ready for a break from the souks, we decided to explore farther afield and look for Bab Aganou -- one of the historical gates in Marrakech's old city walls. There was also supposed to be a palace, so we thought we'd try to find that as well. Although we had a paper map or two and Google maps, it was not easy to find these places, and when we got to the palace we discovered it was not open to the public. But we saw a lot of interesting things along the way.
And here it is -- Bab Aganou. It's hard to tell from this photo just how huge the gate is. And I didn't notice until I saw the photo that there are stork nests on top!
View of the square from our restaurant -- this was later in the day, when it was booming.
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