Marrakesh Day 2

First thing in the morning, we went to the Tomb of the Three Kings Battle.  We had fun with Mustapha understanding the Saadian dynasty history.  Three uncles were battling for the kingdom, two turned against the nephew of one brother thinking he'd own the kingdom one day.  Battles included help from Ferdinand of Spain and Portugal.  See below, each rectangle is a tomb, the white marble bars sticking up are the tombstones wiped away after years of neglect.

Here we are now in the Jardin Majorelle, developed by the French painter Jacques Majorelle around 1931.  "Majorelle Blue" is the famous vivid color you see all around.  The garden has exotic plants and rare species collected from his WW travels.  In 1980 Yves Saint Laurent and partner Pierre Berge acquired the garden to save it + open to the public.  

 

One of the nice surprises was the Berber museum.  You had to wait in line & wear a mask & I almost passed but so glad we didn't.  Mustapha had told us about the Berber people-indigenous to Morocco and how some thought the term Berber was derogatory so they are now called Amazigh.  Hhhmmm----lots of reference to Berber (Berber carpets, Berber food, music, language, customs,) so I didn't really see that.  Nonetheless the museum was full of traditional clothes, tools, instruments, jewelry--just amazing!  Too bad you couldn't take pictures.

We were warned not to take pictures of locals without their permission-so every time I bought something, I asked if I could take a picture.  I bought a beautiful table lamp from this man and when he said I should pay him 6 Durham for the picture, I said I'd give him a kiss instead.  [You can see how he declined]

I bought two teal green bowls from this guy--I wanted a set of four but oh well, they were out.

Vibrancy of the city!

We fell in love with the Moroccan soup & soon learned one appetizer portion feeds two!

Restaurant:  Al Fassia

Ate lots and lots of tangine!

I'd always heard about Ramadan (especially at work where we avoid advertising during Ramadan) but never experienced it.  I also don't know many Muslim people.  Felt so bad our driver and tour guides couldn't eat or drink anything from sunrise to sundown.  In our last 2 cities, they didn't serve alcohol at all during Ramadan. Also made me think-rarely have we travelled to Muslim countries, most of our travels have been to Europe and very Catholic countries--very sheltered, or Asia Buddhist countries.

At nighttime I marveled at all my purchases and tested out my new lamp!  Bought a new bag in the dessert to carry it on the plane.