Peace and Tranquility in a Busy City

Advantages: Peaceful, pretty with wonderful owners and staff. One of my favourite places ever.
Disadvantages: No tea making facilities. Early morning call to prayer gives a swift awakening

...What kind of traveller are you? Do you like to spend your holiday budget on a luxury villa somewhere, with all the mod cons, or do you prefer more Spartan accommodation, on the basis that you're just renting somewhere to rest your head at night? Usually, I fall into the latter category - as much as I like luxury, I cannot justify spending large sums of money if I'm visiting a city in order to get out and about, and discover the culture and meet the people. However, I've just returned from Marrakech, and found a happy medium. Riad Dar Sbihi is in the northern part of the Medina (old city) in Marrakech. A riad is a traditional Moroccan dwelling. It is laid out around a central courtyard, with the rooms communicating with the courtyard, but not with each other. The result of this design is that you step from a bustling (and dusty...

mattygroves 12.05.2008 · Read review
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Review of Riad Dar Sbihi, Marrakech, Morocco

Two weeks in Central Morocco

Advantages: It's cheap, fascinating, beautiful and not even that far.
Disadvantages: The hassle.....

...Morocco ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The North African country of Morocco is one country my partner and I have always wished to visit and we were lucky enough to fulfil this earlier on in the year. We decided to head to Marrakech and explore this mythical city and the surrounding area for a fortnight. Marrakech ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Marrake ch, which aptly means the 'red city is a wonderful city; vibrant and alive with the hustle and bustle of people buying and selling, haggling and calling out to potential customers. We stayed in the old part of the city, within the Djemma el Fna, or the old square. This is where you want to be to experience the real Morocco away from the high rise buildings of the modern city. The square is a huge...

nickyturnill 06.03.2007 · Read review
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Review of General: Morocco

Morocco: Unique and fascinating country

Advantages: cheap and so many fascinating things to see
Disadvantages: can get alot of hassel of stall owners in marrakesh

...I went backpacking in June 2007 with a freind and the first place we started was in Morocco, which is in North Africa and it very different to anywhere else I visited on the trip. Every city had something unique about it and the people changed alot between each city. For example In Cassablance the dress code for women is much more relaxed than in Marrakesh. The first place we went to was Marrakesh. We landed here on a flight from Luton with Ryanir. The flight went smoothly and ran on time, but as soon as we enetered the airport you could tell that you were no longer in Western Europe where everything had to run smoothly and quickly! We waited for about 30 minutes to get through passport control, got our bags only to join another que for about 45 minutes to get some money changed over. They had no money exchange open and everyone from...

crazyfishUK 30.09.2007 · Read review
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Review of General: Morocco

Lovely Riad, Shame About the Location

Advantages: Rooms and food are great, very relaxing
Disadvantages: Location, location, location!

...We have just returned from spending the Easter weekend at Riad O2 in Marrakech. Prior to visiting Marrakech we had good email contact with the riad, and we confirmed with them that we would like to be collected from the airport and have dinner in the riad on our first night. We then arranged to pay the outstanding balance by bank transfer. We arrived at Menara airport after a really easy three hour flight, and we were quickly met by one of the riad's drivers, Hamid. He helped us to his car with our bags and we set off for the medina. Having read a couple of reviews on other sites before leaving we were a little wary of the area that Riad O2 is situated in, and unfortunately on arriving I have to admit our worries were confirmed. Hamid pulled up at the end of a road near Sidi Ben Slimane, and we then walked for three or four...

Stizzy1980 25.03.2008 · Read review
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Review of Riad O2, Marrakesh

Essouira Morocco

Advantages: Small, chilled-out, friendly, pretty,place
Disadvantages: Not exactly the party capital of the world, if you do manage to find a bar serving alcohol, as a woman you will feel pretty uncomfortable in there.

...Having lived in Essouira for two months, I may be biased, but I can't recommend visiting Essouira enough. Having spent 5 months in Morocco as part of my gap year, I travelled extensively and didn't find anywhere in Morocco I liked as much as Essouira. As a young blonde white girl I had grown used to being hassled in the street, it's part of Morocco's charm, but if you want to get away from the hustle and bustle of places like Fez and Marrakesh, Essouira is definately the place to head for. It is a small white-washed chilled out market town on Morocco's West coast. It's definately a tourist town, but somehow it doesn't feel that way. In contrast to the built up concrete tourist trap that is Agadir, staying in Essouira will give you a taste of the real Morocco. Cafe culture is strong and the ancient walls and the fortress overlooking...

helenfeane 10.03.2001 · Read review
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Review of Essaouira (Morocco)

MOROCCO FOR ME

Advantages: friendly hot cheap
Disadvantages: none

...Up to now I can honestly say I enjoyed my holiday in Morocco more than any other, I have been twice now. The first time we went was in September 2001,it wasn?t a direct choice we where just looking for a cheap deal to somewhere hot, we found our holiday on teletext it cost us £200 half board for one week We stayed at the hotel Kamal, which although one of the cheapest off the tourist hotels , was clean, warm and friendly, our room had twin beds a nice spacious sitting area with a sofa coffee table and small dining table and a small balcony overlooking the pool. The pool is not very big but seemed ample for the hotel as it never got overcrowded, it had a poolside snack bar and the chips from there are really nice and made a good lunchtime snack. All in all the food was pretty good. Breakfast was a croissant and a selection...

maureenhastie 22.12.2003 · Read review
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Review of Agadir (Morocco)

The New Moroccan Role

Advantages: "Colored cottons hang in the air?"
Disadvantages: "?Charming cobras in the square." (Crosby, Stills and Nash)

...and history Rather fortuitously, Morocco as a whole derives its name from Marrakech, which in turn derives its name from a Berber expression meaning ?Land of God?. Fortuitously because for only short periods in its history has Morocco been ruled from the Berber south rather than the Arab north. To be strictly geographical, Marrakech is located in the middle of Morocco, but not much happens inland further south or east. Fifty miles away in either direction one reaches the daunting High Atlas mountains, beyond which lies the desert. So in effect it is the main city of the south. Marrakech had its heyday in the 11th-13th centuries as the intermittent capital of a domain that stretched from northern Spain to Senegal in the south and as far to the east as Libya. In those days it was also the nexus of trade routes along which were carried...

torr 06.03.2009 (20.03.2009) · Read review
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Review of Marrakech (Morocco)

Travelling in Morocco

Advantages: Great places to visit, very scenic and picturesque
Disadvantages: Prices for taxi fares are expensive, guides just want to take advantage by charging over the top prices for giving useless information

...nice. Muggers: (let Dean and Jade walk away) This is the story as independently recounted by Dean and Jade. In Sevilla, we managed to find a hostel room that had neither heat nor hot water. We didn't recognize the importance of the absence of this until much later, though. We headed out for dinner. After walking around for a while looking for a place to eat, Mike began protesting loudly: "Why are we walking around so much? We're on holiday!" (This mirrored his explanation of why he wasn't coming to Morocco with us: "I'm on holiday! Why would I want to go somewhere where they don't have toilet paper?") Getting into the Spanish mentality, we had dinner from 10 pm until about 1:30 am. And many, many jugs of sangria (which I hadn't liked when I tried it in the States, but wow, it was good in Spain). And Jason got a bit too drunk!. Dean...

Laura_Elliott 08.09.2002 · Read review
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Review of General: Morocco

A holiday resort built on a great human tragedy

Advantages: A different type of holiday destintation
Disadvantages: None for me

... AGADIR MOROCCO I had a really good fortnight's holiday in Agadir, a city on the Atlantic in the South West of Morocco. I have heard a lot of bad reviews about Agadir, but I really believe that it all depends on the individual's impression and what they make of their time there. Let me try and give you a bit of information about it and my review of our two weeks there. AGADIR ITSELF The city of Agadir itself is primarily a tourist resort that is popular with European travellers. But do not dismiss it merely as a beach holiday; the atmosphere of the city is completely different from any other holiday resort that I have ever visited. Agadir is very different from any other city in Morocco. It has been completely rebuilt after a tragedy - the earthquake of 1961 that killed 15,000 people...

oldchem 09.10.2009 · Read review
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Review of Agadir (Morocco)

Essential Essaouira

Advantages: beautiful beawch, laid back, the medina
Disadvantages: not enough there for a week,

...Marrakesch in Morocco is a wonderful place to visit but sometimes the hustle and bustle of this colourful city can just get too much. When this happens you need to escape the city and what better place to escape to than Essaouira, a lovely, peaceful town on Morocco's Atlantic coast. Essaouira, formerly known as Mogador is a fishing port with a Portuguese citadel and an 18th century Medina (old town ) which is a UNESCO world heritage site. It was a firm favourite with sixties musicians such as Janis Joplin and Jimmy Hendrix and is still a favourite with me due to its charm. . We visited it as a day trip during a weeks holiday in Marrakesh. We were captivated by its pretty whitewashed buildings and the fine golden beach leading to the blueness of the Atlantic Ocean. The easiest and probably cheapest way to make the thtee...

duskmaiden 02.02.2008 · Read review
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Review of Essaouira (Morocco)