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In this episode.

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So

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today we're flying from Paris to Morocco to begin

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our adventures in the Red City of Marrakesh.

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This is the first time I've been on the African continent

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and I was happy to mark Morocco as my first country.

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It's been a dream destination of mine for many years.

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Now, I've always been so fascinated by the architecture,

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intricate mosaics and of course, the cuisine.

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I done a little research on what to expect in Morocco.

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So I knew there would be a bit of a culture shock, but I wasn't expecting this.

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Yep. That's a swarm of angry taxi drivers.

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So when Jonathan and I arrived at the airport,

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we were quickly ushered into one of the cars.

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What we didn't know at the time was that he already had a passenger in the front seat.

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So as we were leaving,

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there was absolute chaos when all the other taxi drivers

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were understandably pissed that he had taken two clients.

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As I said, not quite the shock I was expecting,

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but we ended up making it safely to Riad

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Alecia where we were greeted with traditional Moroccan mint tea and sweets.

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Jonathan.

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Wow.

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Are you already digging

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our

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honeymoon nuts.

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Oh, yeah.

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This is our honeymoon, by the way,

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which is why they had set up the sweetest surprise for us cut.

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This rad is so beautiful and you'll see more of it in the room tour.

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In the next episode,

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our day ended at

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square where you can't film anything without being hassled for a tip.

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You're all cut up. Let's get into day one.

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We decided to introduce ourselves to the city with a tour.

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So my name is Yusuf. I was born and raised up inside the old Medina of Marrakesh

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and I'm half, half, half

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and half Arab.

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As you know, as I said earlier, the Buba are the native inhabitants of Morocco.

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While the Arabs are the ones who came from Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Syria.

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So they cross the Middle East

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and the Rich North African. I'm a father of three kids,

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two daughters and one son. So today I'm going to show you,

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you know the maze of the,

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the streets, the alleyways, the dead ends.

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It's a very exotic place and we invite you to come to see it

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with your eyes. Ok.

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Yousef was so kind and knowledgeable.

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I would highly recommend booking a tour with him for your next trip to Marrakesh.

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His information will be linked in the description box below.

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Thanks to his knowledge,

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we got to these gardens early and you'll see exactly why that's important later

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here in the mall

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gardens. Also known as the

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gardens.

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And these were bought by

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Jacques

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Mall when he came to visit Marrakesh

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and fell absolutely in love with this place.

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So he took plants from all over the world, planted them here.

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But the problem was it is so expensive to maintain and being a painter,

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your art work is often not worth much until you're

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dead.

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So

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what happened is he ran out of money, divorced, his wife, moved back to Paris

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and got into a bad accident.

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So these gardens fell into complete disrepair because

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no one could take care of them.

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So I

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started negotiating for these gardens in 1966.

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It's not until 1980 that they bought this place. Yves,

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Saint Laurent

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loved these gardens so much actually

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that he wanted his ashes to be spread when he died.

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And that's exactly what happened in 2008 when Yves,

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Saint Laurent's ashes were spread around the garden.

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This Electric Blue house is now home to

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be

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bear,

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which showcases over 600 artifacts from Morocco's indigenous people.

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The Berbers, the shade of blue that the house is painted in is called Blue Mall

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named after

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Jacques Mall

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himself and has even been patented.

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It is made from a precious stone called La la

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which can be ground to a powder and used as a pigment.

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Tickets haven't got

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with

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change.

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We

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cause I'm waiting,

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what's wrong baby,

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but we have to go to the next place. So

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in recent years,

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this garden has become incredibly popular and now ranks as one of

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Morocco's most visited tourist attractions with around 900,000 visitors a year.

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Remember what I said about the early bird catches the worm,

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a long line right there.

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We arrived a little after nine AM and walked right inside.

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But by the time we left around 10 30 this was the line.

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So if you don't wanna deal with the crowd or waiting the line,

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I highly recommend arriving within the first hour that the garden is open.

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Our

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next stop is Bahia

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Palace which means brilliance in Arabic.

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It was built between 18 66 and 18 76 and features over 150 ornately decorated rooms

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in every palace.

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There are four layers to a room, cedarwood,

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then plaster tile and marble on the floor.

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The cedarwood ceilings are painted with natural pigments

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orange from hena yellow, from saffron green,

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from wild mint blue from indigo flowers and purple from

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jacaranda flowers.

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All of the plaster you see is carved by

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hand and typically consists of Arabic phrases or poems.

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And by the way, all the noble families during the old time took it as a rule

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to keep the whole place and the whole palace very simple from outside,

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but very beautiful and very orated from inside.

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And this was done on purpose

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because

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you know, so that the poor would not hold grudge against the rich.

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In fact,

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the Vizi would only choose naturally blind

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musicians to perform at the palace because they

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would not be able to reveal the opulence and wealth to the outside world.

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This courtyard was the mistresses section.

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It's large because the grand vizier loved women so

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much that he had four wives and 24 mistresses,

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all of their rooms face his grand courtyard.

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And on the other side is an entrance to a beautiful garden.

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So just imagine how much water do we need to keep those gardens green all the time.

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So during the old time,

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Morocco used a system of aqueducts

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to push the water from the high Atlas mountains to the city,

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relying on gravity

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to chisel that fountain over there

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takes a lot of time and we value anything that is hand made.

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And that's why we try to teach

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the work of the hands like the work of tiles chiseling the marble cheese,

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limp the plaster so that this kind of work would not die out.

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Our guide Yusuf was saying that one kg of sugar was treated for one kg of marble.

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And as you can see, there's lots of marble on the.

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So

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I wonder how much sugar is here?

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We exported a lot of sugar

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to eat late to have marble in return. But we use this sugar

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in the Moroccan

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tea.

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That's what was so addicted

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to sugar.

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The stained glass windows were one of my favorite parts of the Baja

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Palace

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when the sun shines through, it leaves rainbows on the walls.

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So we were joking with, you said that the owner of this palace had 24 wives.

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I

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think one is already too much

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problem.

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One is enough, one is enough. One is enough enough enough.

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One of the first things I noticed about Marrakesh

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is the contrast between the peace and calm of the inside of the buildings

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and the chaos and noise outside.

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The second was how friendly and close knit the whole community is.

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As we walk through the old Medina,

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you'll notice use of our guy greeting everyone as we pass.

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See,

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the donkeys are equipped with the diapers to catch

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the pool and to keep the city clean.

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The poop is Cooper.

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Our first stop in the old Medina is the community oven.

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I

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would like to show you here a very, very, you know, beautiful rustic

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primitive place where time is so frozen.

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So here we have what is called Far.

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Far

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means the community of

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a community or

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a

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place where

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the locals around this place, bring the dough

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to be cooked in that fireplace. I want you to squat down

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and have a look how big the fireplace is.

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It's so big and so huge that the guy has some puddles

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on the right to flip the bread or to take the bread out of the fireplace.

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This place also is used to roast the peanuts, almonds and what not.

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And the afternoon, it can be used like a place to cook the Moroccan pastry.

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So when I was a little boy,

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one of the chores I did was to take the dough to the community of every day.

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So we don't want those places to die out with time.

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And that's why, you know, we contribute with what we can

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to leave them doing this kind of job. So every single neighborhood has

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one mosque,

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one

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is the best where we wash our bodies. One community often like this

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one community, you know

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a fountain

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and a small market for vegetables and fruit.

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So those places you know, make people here very close to each other.

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Everybody knows everybody inside the old medina,

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everybody talks to everybody inside the old medina and you

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cannot imagine how much talking we do every day.

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We can spend the whole day long talking. Do you know why

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we have a lot of time?

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Some people have watches.

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Some people have time.

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So normally people splash the water on the floor

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to settle down the dust because in Marrakech, we have a lot of dust.

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The souk is a tornado of smells. At times.

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You could easily tell where you were just by the smell

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from the leather to the spices, carpets and blacksmith areas.

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The pungent smells were always changing.

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So the whole sok is divided into section as well.

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The spice market, the carpet market,

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the blacksmith area.

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So the leather market and in some places like the places we saw earlier,

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it's all mixed together.

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But in other areas,

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it's divided into sections like this because the overlapping bricks are red

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because they have a lot of steel and iron.

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And that's why Marrakech is called the Red City.

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We took this time with Yusuf to really familiarize ourselves with

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the maze of the souk and how to navigate it.

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In a later episode,

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Jonathan and I will try to tackle it all on our own and buy some things along the way.

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This is,

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we use Noga in it, sesame. You know, honey, sugar, flour, salt.

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It's very, very tasty and very sweet, very sweet.

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Normally, it's very popular during Ramadan time,

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we break the fasting with something sweet.

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So it's very, very famous.

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This is like

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the

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of the Moroccan pastry. This one,

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Josef

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has been so kind to share it with us. I'm so happy. We have a local showing us around

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and getting us the most interesting prices. Obviously,

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what we call the Fatima's hand.

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It's used like a token to chase away the evil eye and it brings luck to people.

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So you may find that like a knock off a door

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like a piece of decoration.

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If it is down like this, it brings luck if it is pointing upward,

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it words up evil, see very beautiful, full of cutters.

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The auction takes place in the middle of this square

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after the third time of praying,

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you know, like 4 35 you know, when people finish their praying,

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they go out and start the auction and carpets here.

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So you tell me why a lot of people come here. They come just for this.

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This is so magical. So

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uh uh uh mind blowing as the Americans say, drop dead gorgeous.

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I have to agree. The lantern section of the soup was my favorite.

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All the light shining onto the brass was in fact, drop dead gorgeous.

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Yes.

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The blacksmith area was my second favorite.

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I just love seeing the artisans hard at work on their craft.

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After saying goodbye to Yusuf. We headed back to the

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past

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for lunch.

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This one was seafood, but my favorite is the chicken one.

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It's sweet and savory because it has apples and almonds in it.

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Trust me, it sounds weird. But you have to try it.

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If you listen closely,

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you can hear the call to prayer which rings up

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from mosques around the city five times a day.

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You don't.

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We spent the rest of the afternoon lounging the pool and then enjoyed a nice dinner at

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rooftop.

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Welcome

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in the next episode.