MARRAKECH, Morocco — Someone must have rubbed a brass lamp and let out the genie. That's the only conclusion I can draw, given the changes to Marrakech since my last visit a decade ago.
In those days, the low, burnt-umber-colored city in southern Morocco had the ambiguous charms of a Muslim imperial capital and the hurly-burly of a caravansary.
But the city was dirty and difficult to navigate, with few street signs in the mazelike medina, the old quarter of the city, and only a handful of hotels and restaurants suitable for tourists. At night, the nonexistent sidewalks of Marrakech were rolled up.
When I returned a month ago, I found the eight gates of the walled city, built in 1070, flung open wide.
With a burgeoning population of about a million, Marrakech is cleaner and more tourist-friendly. On my previous visit, I was surrounded by annoying would-be guides and touts whenever I stepped outdoors. For the most part, that's no longer the case.
An influx of Northern European snowbirds has slowed the retreat of the moneyed classes from the medina to the suburbs. Many of the newcomers are architects and designers who have restored old townhouses as restaurants and guesthouses, helping to make Marrakech the most chic city in "the Maghreb," the Arabic name for Northwest Africa.
The Europeans brought their sense of style with them so that, these days, almost everywhere you turn in Marrakech you see something new: traditional "djellaba" robes and "babouche" slippers in fun new fabrics; European-inspired gourmet twists on such old Moroccan standards as "tajine," a stew; and a host of trendy new boutique hotels.
Best of all, people have rediscovered the elegant architecture of the medina, which blends Islamic abstraction with Moorish embellishment, sub-Saharan design and the colorful folk art of the Berber people of the Atlas Mountains.
The genie behind the city's transformation was King Mohammed VI, who took the throne of the democratic monarchy of Morocco in 1999. Two years later, he launched an initiative to ready the country to receive 10 million tourists by 2010.
The program has encouraged foreign investment, especially in hotels, and new airlines, such as budget carrier Atlas Blue, to reach new Moroccan destinations such as Agadir, an Atlantic port in southern Morocco.
It has trained tourism workers and has taught average workaday Moroccans how to make visitors welcome, without the old harassment and hard sell.
Of course, the city's transformation doesn't come without rubs, such as spiraling prices for meals and accommodations
Fortunately, the city's remarkable main tourist attractions remain the same.
They start with the Koutoubia mosque, a Marrakech landmark, surrounded by rose gardens and distinguished by a 230-foot pink sandstone tower, the prototype of landmark minarets in Seville, Spain, and in Rabat, Morocco's capital.
Nearby is the Place Jamaa el-Fna, the lively square that's the heart of the medina. It yields to the city's seductive "souks," the open-air marketplaces.
Find your way north of the Place Jamaa el-Fna to the Ben Youssef Medersa, one of the Muslim world's great educational centers.
Nearby is the recently restored domed Qubba, a medieval water station, and the Museum of Marrakech, which puts contemporary art in the frame of a late 19th-century Moroccan palace.
South of the Place Jamaa el-Fna are palaces, gardens, decorated gates and museums, such as Dar Si Said, dedicated to the arts and folk crafts of Morocco. On twisting alleyways nearby is Dar Tiskiwin, an elegant townhouse and museum full of Moroccan and sub-Saharan artifacts collected by Bert Flint, a Dutch expatriate.
To me, Marrakech will always be a little bit of everything: rough edges, deals to be made, djellabas and babouches, bright colors, energy, heat. I like the recent transformations, but I hope the more it changes, the more it will stay the same.
Source : The Seattle Times Company |
