In peak season, expect to wait 15 minutes to an hour to get in. Jardin Majorelle also houses a pretty courtyard cafe, a small book and photography shop, and a chic boutique selling Majorelle blue slippers, textiles and Amazigh-inspired jewellery influenced by YSL designs.Īll areas of Jardin Majorelle are wheelchair and stroller accessible.Īs Morocco's most popular tourist attraction, the line to get into Jardin Majorelle can be long. To add more space for the huge number of visitors, the YSL Foundation expanded the gardens in December 2018 by opening up the section containing Villa Oasis, where Bergé lived until his death in 2017. It's far from the peaceful oasis it was a decade ago, but it's still an extremely stylish place with magical gardens, art deco architecture and an excellent museum. In recent years, the site has become incredibly popular, and it now ranks as Morocco's most visited tourist attraction, with around 900,000 visitors a year. At its heart lies Majorelle's electric-blue art deco studio, home to the Musée Berbère, which showcases the rich panorama of Morocco's indigenous inhabitants through displays of some 600 artifacts. The garden, started in 1924, contains a psychedelic desert mirage of 300 plant species from five continents. Read moreįrench fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent and his partner Pierre Bergé bought Jardin Majorelle in 1980 to preserve the vision of its original owner, French landscape painter Jacques Majorelle, and keep it open to the public. Morocco has a hundred faces and sounds, all ready to welcome the traveller looking for spice and adventure. Its mixed Arab and Berber population forms a strong national identity, but an increasingly youthful one, taking the best of its traditions and weaving the pattern anew – from the countryside to the city, from the call to prayer from the mosque to the beat of local hip hop. Morocco is a storied country, that has, over the centuries, woven its ties to sub-Saharan Africa, Europe and the wider Middle East into whole cloth. Between the activities, you can sleep in boutique riads, relax on panoramic terraces and grand squares, and mop up delicately flavoured tajines – before sweating it all out in a restorative hammam. Use the opportunity to plan your next moves – hiking up North Africa’s highest peak, learning to roll couscous, camel trekking in the desert, shopping in the souqs or getting lost in the medina. Moroccan ActivitiesĮnjoying Morocco starts with nothing more strenuous than its national pastime – people-watching in a street cafe with a coffee or a mint tea. But it's not just a heritage trip, as Morocco's cities are forward-facing too, with glitzy new urban design in Casablanca, Rabat and Tangier looking to the future as well as paying homage to their roots. In the rocky deserts medinas are protected by kasbahs, on the coast by thick sea walls. Join the centuries-old trail of nomads and traders to their ancient hearts, from the winding medina maze of Fez to the carnivalesque street-theatre of the Djemaa El Fna in Marrakesh. Morocco's cities are some of the most exciting on the continent. On lower ground, there are rugged coastlines, waterfalls and caves in forested hills, and the mighty desert. The mountains – not just the famous High Atlas but also the Rif and suntanned ranges leading to Saharan oases – offer simple, breathtaking pleasures: night skies glistening in the thin air, and views over a fluffy cloudbank from the Tizi n’Test pass. Lyrical landscapes carpet this slice of North Africa like the richly coloured and patterned rugs you’ll lust after in local cooperatives. Mountains & Desertįrom Saharan dunes to the peaks of the High Atlas, Morocco could have been tailor-made for travellers. Here you'll find epic mountain ranges, ancient cities, sweeping deserts – and warm hospitality. Morocco is a gateway to Africa and a country of dizzying diversity.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |