In this post, I will tell you about Day 2 of our 5-day break in Morocco. We arrived in Marrakesh the previous day, and day 2 was the day that we explored more of Marrakesh.
Check out my post for Morocco in winter – Is it worth? Marrakesh – Day 1 and continue reading the next posts that will cover the whole trip.
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Below is a map showing the places we went to on our second day in Marrakesh:
We were travelling independently, but if you prefer to have everything organised by a tour operator, before booking anything check the tours offered by Tourradar. They have a variety of tours to Morocco that suits the time and budget of everyone.
If you book any of Tourradar tours via my links and use code RoseG50 you will get a discount on your booking.
Before telling you about our day, let’s learn a little bit about Marrakesh:
A LITTLE BIT ABOUT MARRAKESH
Marrakesh is Morocco’s fourth-largest city, with 1 million people, located at the junction of the Atlas Mountains and the Haouz plain. Founded in 1070 CE by the Almoravid dynasty, it served as an imperial capital for multiple dynasties (Almoravids, Almohads, Saadians, Alaouites). Its geopolitical significance derived from its location, commanding trade routes between sub-Saharan Africa and the Mediterranean, and bridging Arab and Berber cultural spheres.
The medina (old city), a UNESCO World Heritage site, is a dense urban maze of souks, riads and mosques. It’s still structured by pre-modern logics: guild-based clustering, no zoning, informal property rights, and minimal state enforcement. Commerce is embedded in personal networks, not impersonal contracts.
Outside the medina, the ville nouvelle (new city), built under French colonialism (1912–1956), shows a modernist grid, wide boulevards, and administrative rationality. This dual structure, Islamic city vs. colonial overlay, mirrors similar patterns in Tunis, Cairo, and Algiers.
Post-independence, the state layered further modernity: luxury hotels, gated suburbs, Yves Saint Laurent’s Jardin Majorelle, and the 2016 Museum of African Contemporary Art.
VISITING MARRAKESH
We started our day by having breakfast at Riad Zayane before going out. Breakfast was served at the patio and brought to your table. You could choose coffee or tea to your taste, bread, butter, jams, pastry and something hot. On this day, we had an omelette.
The day was nice, sunny, but not very hot. Once breakfast was over, we left for the day. We started by walking to the train station, which was not very far from our Riad. We wanted to buy tickets for the next day to Casablanca and were unable to buy them online for some reason. So, we went straight there and bought the tickets for an early train, the next day.
From there, we took a taxi to take us to the Bahia Palace for our first visit of the day.
1 – BAHIA PALACE, MARRAKESH, MOROCCO
Bahia Palace is a 19th-century architectural statement, built not for a sultan but for a vizier, Si Moussa, former slave turned Grand Vizier under the Alaouite sultan Muhammad IV. His son, Ba Ahmed, expanded it while serving as the ruler of Morocco from 1894–1900.
The palace occupies 8 hectares in the southern medina. It’s not a single structure but an addition of courtyards, gardens, riads, and reception halls. No axial symmetry, no master plan and that’s intentional. It reflects both the organic logic of Islamic domestic architecture and the sultan’s desire to obscure the internal spaces.
The name “Bahia” means “the Brilliant,” likely referencing Ba Ahmed’s favourite concubine. He built sections of the palace for his four wives and 24 concubines. Spatial segregation is extreme—harem areas, formal reception rooms, and administrative wings are sharply divided.
Decoration is maximalist: zellij tilework, cedarwood ceilings from the Middle Atlas, carved stucco, and Italian marble imported via Tangier. Every surface is ornamented, but with strictly non-figurative Islamic motifs, geometry, vegetal arabesques and calligraphy. It’s a synthesis of Andalusian-Maghrebi aesthetics, executed by craftsmen from Fez.
The palace was never finished. Ba Ahmed died suddenly in 1900. Looting followed. The French colonial authorities later appropriated the building as a residence for General Lyautey while he was based in Morocco.
Today, it’s empty of furniture, functioning as a tourist monument. But its architecture still performs its original function: impressing visitors with wealth, legitimacy, and cultivated taste.
We entered the palace and admired each room, decorated with tiles, carved timber doors and windows and decorated ceilings. The palace was very busy at the time, full of tourists exploring the treasures of the impressive palace. We spent about 2 hours there before moving on to the next visit nearby, the El Badi Palace.
There is a skip-the line, guided tour of Bahia Palace that lasts 1.5 hours and looks like a very good way of learning more about this palace. Book this tour HERE.
Alternatively, there is another tour that lasts 3 hours and visits the Bahia Palace, the Saadian Tombs and Koutoubia Mosque, all with skip-the-line tickets and a guide. Book this one HERE.
2 – EL BADI PALACE
El Badi Palace is a ruin, but a calculated one. Built by Saadian sultan Ahmad al-Mansur after his victory at the 1578 Battle of the Three Kings, it was intended less as a residence than as a demonstration of absolute sovereignty, financed by ransom payments from Portugal and sugar exports.
Construction began in 1578 and lasted over 25 years. The palace cost the equivalent of hundreds of millions in modern currency. Materials were imported from across the Islamic world: Carrara marble from Italy, gold from Timbuktu, onyx from India, cedarwood from the Middle Atlas. It was a project of symbolic overreach “The Incomparable,” as the name means, meant to rival the Alhambra or Topkapi.
Its layout was Persian influenced: a central sunken courtyard with four reflecting pools and orange groves, surrounded by reception halls, throne rooms, and pavilions. The symmetry, axiality, and hydraulic sophistication reflected Timurid and Andalusian models, filtered through Maghrebi aesthetics.
It didn’t last. In 1696, sultan Moulay Ismail ordered El Badi systematically stripped to build his palace in Meknes. The act was not vandalism but reappropriation: political legitimacy was transferred by physically moving the stones.
Today, only the shell remains: massive walls enclosing empty space. But even in ruin, it functions as an architectural attraction; its scale implies what once was. The site is also archaeologically active; excavations continue to reveal Saadian burial practices, ceramics, and hydraulic engineering.
Although it is in ruins, whatever was left was preserved, and it gives us a good idea of what it once was. We visited the inside and after explored the outside and the long pools and garden full of orange trees.
After the visit, we walked through the medina, passing through Souk Semmarine in the direction of Place des Épices. We wanted to have lunch at “Café des Épices” as we heard that they serve very good food there.
We sat at an outside table and ordered our lunch, which was a tuna sandwich and egg and avocado on toast, accompanied by mint tea. (I could never stop drinking this tea!). Lunch was indeed very good, and the café stands up to its hype.
After lunch, we had to rush because we had tickets to go to the Majorelle Garden and Yves Saint Laurent Museum at 2 pm. You can only enter this garden/museum if you book a time online. It is not possible to buy tickets at the door. We walked to Jamaa El Fnaa Square and caught a taxi near there. We didn’t have time to walk to the museum and arrive there on time. Taxis are not very expensive in Morocco.
3 – JARDIN MAJORELLE AND YVES SAINT LAURENT MUSEUM
We only had tickets to visit the garden. I didn’t buy tickets to the museum because we had to be back at our Riad by 3:30 pm to get ready and to be picked up at 4:30 pm to go to the “Agafay Desert Sunset” tour. I will tell you about it later.
Jardin Majorelle was created in the 1920s/30s by French Orientalist painter Jacques Majorelle. It’s a botanical garden with an Art Deco villa and Moroccan motifs, marked by the intense cobalt “Majorelle Blue” that now functions as a kind of luxury brand.
The garden became a major tourist attraction in Morocco with about 300 species of plants in about 1 hectare or 10,000 m2.
The name is after its founder, the painter Jacques Majorelle, who owned it until he died in 1962. The garden was abandoned for several years before Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé bought it in 1980 and undertook major restoration of the garden and villa.
In 2011, the Berber Museum was inaugurated on the ground floor of the villa and former YSL studio. It gathers a collection of more than 600 objects representing Berber art.
We strolled through the paths of this beautiful garden, admiring the well-tended plants and landscape design, but soon had to leave and walk to our Riad, which was not very far away.
For tickets to the garden only, book it HERE. For tickets to the garden the YSL Museum and the Barber Museum you can book HERE.
4 – AGAFAY DESERT SUNSET TOUR
After a quick shower, we went to the place agreed (outside the medina gate) to meet the van and our guide, who was going to accompany us to a beautiful sunset in the desert.
We travelled for about half an hour, forty-five minutes until we arrived in an argan oil cooperative where we sat on outside tables and were served some bread to taste different kinds of oil. We tried a peanut-flavoured one, a peppery one and a natural one. All of them were delicious, and I would have bought some of them to bring home with me, but suddenly the guide asked us to quickly go back to the van to continue with the trip. There was no time to stop at the shop to buy anything.
We arrived at the site in the desert and could see the camels carrying other tourists on a ride. We stayed in line and waited until it was our group’s turn. I found the camel ride fun, but very uncomfortable, as it shook a lot. The ride was not very long, just enough for us to have a taste of what it is to ride on a camel.
After the ride, we were taken to another part of the site full of tables and chairs with a kind of stage in front, a big fire and some musicians playing Moroccan songs.
Soon they started serving dinner, which was harira soup with bread, couscous with vegetables, and chicken tagine accompanied by mint tea. It was a nice dinner, but nothing special. After dinner, we had time to walk around the site and take photos of the sunset, the mountains and the desert.
The music started to get more rhythmic, and soon people started to gather around the fire and the musicians and started dancing. It went on for some time, and towards the last half an hour or so, the area was full of people dancing to the rhythms of the Moroccan music.
We are not dancing people, so we just observed from a distance and were entertained by the action going on. There was also a show of a man playing with fire that attracted a lot of attention and gave some more interest to the show.
When it was finished, we went back to the van and were taken back to Marrakesh. We arrived at our Riad well past midnight. It was a different night, fun and entertaining in Morocco.
The tour we booked was this ONE that included the argan oil factory, the camel ride and the dinner show. However, there are other tours that also include a quad bike ride in the desert sands. That should be fun! Book this one HERE.
We went straight to bed, looking forward to some rest after a very active and busy day. The next day was going to be an early start as our train to Casablanca was leaving Marrakesh at 07:50 am.
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I hope this post will give you some idea of what can be done in a day in Marrakesh and will help you plan your own visit there.
HOW TO MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR VISIT
Below you will find a list of what to visit, where to stay and where to eat in Marrakesh. I classified each place as follows:
BOLD – Visited, tried and recommended
NOT BOLD – Not visited or tried, but planning to visit or try and heard very good reviews
RED – Visited and tried but do not recommend, avoid or be cautious
*** – Excellent
** – Good
* – OK
£££ – Expensive
££ – Fair and affordable
£ – Cheap
PLEASE NOTE: Every hotel, restaurants and attractions I mention on my blogs are not sponsored reviews and we always paid the full price when visiting. We give our own opinion of the place and detail our experience, good or bad.
THINGS TO DO – DAY 2
ATTRACTIONS
1 – Bahia Palace – ***
2 – El Badi Palace – ***
3 – Jardin Majorelle – ***
4 – Agafay Desert Sunset Tour – ***
WHERE TO STAY
ACCOMMODATION
1 – Riad Zayane – 4* – *** – ££
2 – Riad Mamahouse – 3* – ££
3 – Riad Palais Calipau – 4* – ££
4 – Hotel & Spa Dar Baraka & Karam – 4* – £££
5 – Dar Rhiziane, Palais Table d’hôtes & SPA – 5* – £££
6 – La Maison Arabe Hotel, Spa & Cooking Workshops – 5* – £££
If you prefer to look for your own accommodation, search and book via the below widget:
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BEST PLACES TO EAT
RESTAURANTS
1 – Comptoir Darna – £££
2 – Café des Épices – *** – ££
3 – Izza – £££
4 – Restaurant Le Grand Bazar Marrakesh – ££
5 – Naranj Libanese – ££
6 – Le Bistro Arabe – Moroccan Jazz – £££
We only tried the ones in bold , the others are the result of my researches and ones that I would like to try. If you tried any of my recommendations above, please send me a message and tell me about your experience good or bad, so I can update the list accordingly. Thanks!
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