We woke up in our gorgeous riad. Our room is really quite spectacular.

We had a beautiful breakfast – which was delicious –  before we met our guide: Khalid.

We headed off through the narrow alleys and wound our way to the large square. Stalls and stands were juts being set up. It’s an interesting square, with snake charmers, women offering too do henna, and little shops and then some sad things to see like monkeys dressed up and chained to owners and sold for pictures.

We wandered through the souks to make our way to the famous palace.

We stopped for some cute pics:

There we explored the grounds and the rooms – so beautiful  – and learned the history.

We walked though the Jewish quarter, and then  continued to the tombstones – but everyone was a bit tired to wait the long line to see the nice room.

We stopped for lunch at a place where there were both locals and Moroccans and had a decent lunch

Afterwards we weaved through all the different souks – spice, olive, blacksmith, leather, fabric. So amazing. We practiced our bargaining for several things – with our guide  giving us some tips.

There were so many places I wanted to go, but we didn’t get at chance. You need several days in Marrakesh – so definitely need to come back.

We had a short rest at the riad and then headed out again. Much to the dismay of the kids, I had booked a family photoshoot with Pixaround, There was a big mixup (which Pixaround took care of very quickly) so we went and grabbed drinks – which turned into ice creams in the market! (see how the market fills up by late afternoon?):

We finally did the photoshoot and had a few laughs doing that. Teenage boys aren’t keen on getting their picture taken at the best of times, lol.

        

And our classic Josh:

We walked the markets again, bought a few more things and headed for dinner.

We found a cute little Italian restaurant. No, we realize we are not in Italy, but everyone wanted a change of food and it seems to be a tradition to find Italian wherever we are – so why break the tradition?

We headed back to our riad – but got seriously lost. When we stopped to ask, the man told us it was at least a 30-40 minute walk in the opposite direction. What?!?!? 

Luckily Zach has a good sense of direction and within 10 minutes he had led us back to our riad.

It was a bit of quiet night as Zach and Josh had made a deal that Josh could get a pair of Zach’s shoes if he didn’t talk for 10 hours. Zach desperately tried to get Josh to talk – but Josh stayed quiet for the 2-3 hours before bed, then slept (so that made it easier! Although Zach tried to wake him up several times throughout the night to get hi to talk, lol).

We had to say good bye to our wonderful guide and driver Ali as he was heading back to Ouarzazate to spend some time with his family. His cousin would take us to Casablanca for our last day. 

He truly was an incredible guide and driver. He made our trip so much better!

One last day – finishing up where we leave from : Casablanca.