Marrakech With Kids: A Riad, a Guide in the Souks and the Square at Dusk

Marrakech is loud, hot, beautiful and confusing, and with children it is one of the best cities in the world if you do three things. Sleep in a riad, take a guide for the first souk walk, and go to the square at dusk.

A riad is a traditional house built around a courtyard, and inside the medina walls there are hundreds turned into small hotels. A courtyard with a plunge pool, orange trees, a roof terrace, and silence from the street. Book one with a pool, near a gate so the taxi can find it, and with a family room. The kids will have the courtyard as a playground and the roof for the sunset call to prayer.

The souks are a maze of alleys with everything for sale and everyone selling it. The first time, go with a guide from the riad for two hours. They walk you through the spice sellers, the metal workers, the dyers with the wool hanging in colors, and the tanneries from a terrace, and nobody hassles a family with a local. After that the kids know the way and the second visit is on your own.

The square and the day out

Jemaa el Fna is the square, and at dusk it fills with storytellers, snake charmers, musicians, henna artists and a hundred food stalls with smoke rising. Sit on a terrace of a cafe above it as the lamps come on, then walk through it. A juice from the orange carts. Twenty minutes in the crowd is enough for small children.

Jardin Majorelle is the blue garden for a cool morning. The Bahia palace for the tiles. Then a day trip to the Atlas, an hour out, for lunch in a Berber village with a walk to a waterfall and mules for the little ones.

Four nights. Then Essaouira on the coast for the wind and the camels on the beach, or the desert if the kids are over six.

Planning Morocco with kids? Start with the full Morocco family travel guide, or send me the ages and the dates and I will come back with what is really available.