Sometimes you just need to meet your best friend in Paris and plan a last-minute trip somewhere new. So, one too many glasses of natural wine deep and with 18 hours to spare, we booked our tickets to Marrakech. We landed in Marrakech with virtually zero advance planning, vague preconceived notions and a few travel cautions from French friends. But after just a few hours of wandering in the medina, I realized that this is a city designed to get lost in and explore, so travel plans be damned! Here are a few of our favorite things from five days in Marrakech.

Shopping

Upon arriving, we asked the host of our riad where the souks were, which is an absolutely ludicrous question in hindsight because the entire medina (the old walled city) is a souk. Best advice: simply enjoy getting lost in the labyrinths of streets and compare products and prices across shops before committing.

For an elevated babouches shopping experience, we stumbled upon Balghine Magic Shop, 27 Riad Zitoune el Kdime. They make custom babouches of a higher quality than most you’ll find in the market at a reasonable price. The owner is lovely, and even offered to add a rubber sole and heel to the other leather-soled babouches I had already purchased in the souks. For a more upscale shopping experience with very high quality artisan-made goods, we loved the boutique at El Fenn: https://el-fenn.com/.

Visit

Marrakech seems to oscillate between chaos and refuge. When in the streets of the medina, all of your senses are overwhelmed. Yet, just behind the many doors that line the streets lie these incredible oases of peace and beauty. I tend to gravitate towards extremes, so I love having both experiences within reach at all times. Some of our favorite spots:

Dar Si Said Palace & Museum of Moroccan Arts. Not as crowded as the more frequented Bahia Palace and filled with beautiful Moroccan textiles, I absolutely loved this visit, and took a disproportionate amount of palace photos here. See below.

Le Jardin Majorelle & Yves Saint Laurent Museum. The gardens are overrun with tourist but it is still beautiful to see. I loved the Yves Saint Laurent Museum, and I would recommend having a nice lunch outside at their cafe.

Food

We ate so well in Marrakech, and drank lots of Moroccan wine. Perhaps only one mediocre, overpriced meal over the course of five days. Here’s what we highly recommend (mediocre restaurant not listed):

Terrasse des Epices (in the medina). Amazing views, great food and service.