Marrakech
The red city: a square that becomes a theatre at dusk, souks, riads and the Atlas behind.
Marrakech is the old imperial city at the foot of the High Atlas, its medina a maze of souks and riads inside red walls, its great square filling each evening with storytellers, musicians and food stalls. The palm groves, the gardens and the new town lie outside the walls; the mountains and the desert are the road beyond.
Why go
For the medina, which is the whole experience: getting lost in the souks, finding your riad's door in a blank wall, the courtyard and the rooftop behind it, the call to prayer from the Koutoubia over the roofs.
And for what is within a day: Berber villages in the Atlas valleys, the coast at Essaouira, the gorges and kasbahs of the road to Ouarzazate, and, with a couple of nights, the dunes of the Sahara.
Highlights
What people go for, in no particular order.
01Jemaa el-Fnaa
The square at the medina's heart, quiet in the morning, crowded with juice stalls by afternoon and transformed at dusk into rows of food stalls, drummers, acrobats and story circles under the smoke.
02The souks
Leather, lanterns, carpets, spices, slippers and metalwork in lanes that specialise by trade, north of the square. Bargain gently and follow the noise; the way out is always the Koutoubia's minaret.
03The Ben Youssef Madrasa
The Koranic school with its carved cedar, stucco and zellij tiles around a courtyard and pool, and the students' cells above.
04The palaces and the tombs
The Bahia Palace's painted ceilings and courtyards, the ruined El Badi with its storks, and the Saadian tombs found behind a wall in the kasbah quarter.
05The gardens
The blue of the Majorelle garden and the museum beside it in the new town, the olive groves and pavilion of the Menara, and the restored Secret Garden inside the medina.
06The Atlas and the valleys
The Ourika valley's waterfalls, the Imlil valley below Toubkal and the Berber villages on the passes, an hour or two south for a day walk or an overnight in a mountain lodge.
07Essaouira and the desert
The windswept Atlantic port with its ramparts and fishing boats, three hours west; or the long road over the Atlas past Aït Benhaddou's kasbah to the dunes of Merzouga or Zagora.
Areas
Where to base yourself, and what each area is like.
The medina
Riads behind unmarked doors in the lanes, with courtyards, roof terraces and the souks at the door. The reason to come.
Guéliz and Hivernage
The French-built new town: wide streets, cafés, galleries, larger hotels and the Majorelle garden.
The Palmeraie
Resorts and villas among the palm groves north of the city, calm and a taxi ride from the walls.
When to go: Marrakech
- SpringMarch – May
- Warm days, cool nights, orange blossom in the gardens and snow still on the Atlas. The prime season.
- AutumnSeptember – November
- The heat easing and the light golden on the walls. The other prime season, and good for the mountains.
- WinterDecember – February
- Sunny days and cold nights, with the riads lit by fires and the Atlas passes sometimes closed by snow.
- SummerJune – August
- Very hot in the city; the medina's shade, a pool and early mornings make it work, and the mountains and the coast are cooler.
Getting there
Airports
One airport in our search serves Marrakech. Distances are measured in a straight line.
- RAKMenara
Distance from
- CDGParis2,120 km
- LHRLondon2,290 km
- JFKNew York5,860 km
- DXBDubai6,150 km
- JNBJohannesburg7,490 km
- BOMMumbai8,070 km
- SINSingapore11,990 km
- SYDSydney18,050 km
Getting around: Marrakech
The medina is walked, with a map that will fail you and locals who will not; small taxis wait at the gates for the new town and the gardens. The airport is a short ride from the walls.
A car with a driver is the way into the Atlas and to Essaouira and the desert road; hotels and riads arrange them. Trains link Marrakech to Casablanca, Rabat and Fez.
Practical facts
The country, its currency and languages, the time zone and the time there now.
- Country
- Morocco
- Currency
- MAD · Moroccan Dirham
- Languages
- Arabic and Standard Moroccan Tamazight
- Time zone
- UTC+00:00
- Local time now
- Calling code
- +212
The atlas
Marrakech in figures
The figures under this guide: the climate on modelled 2001–2020 averages, how far it is from the UAE, and the places around it.
Climate
The weather in Marrakech, month by month
- Jan17°
- Feb18°
- Mar22°
- Apr24°
- May28°
- Jun33°
- Jul38°
- Aug37°
- Sept32°
- Oct27°
- Nov21°
- Dec18°
- Mild to warm and dry
- Mild to warm, humid or showery
- Hot
- Cool
- Wet
- Cold
Good for going, on these averages: February to May and October to December.
Mean highs run from 17°C in January to 38°C in July, with about 291 mm of rain in a year.
These are modelled averages for 2001–2020; the seasons described above are our own reading of a typical year.
Month-by-month climate for MarrakechModelled averages for an area about 50 km across, not a weather station's record: NASA POWER climatology, 2001–2020.
The figures are modelled at Marrakesh, the atlas city this page's place is measured from.
The model's grid cell sits about 380 m higher than the town, so real temperatures there run a little warmer than these.
Airports
How far it is from the UAE
From DXBMarrakech
6,150 km
8 hrs · Estimate
From AUHMarrakech
6,120 km
7 hrs 55 mins · Estimate
The great-circle distance, and a rough flying time: the distance at an average 850 km/h plus 45 minutes for take-off and landing. Real flights follow airways, meet headwinds and wait for traffic, so schedules differ.
On the map
Places near Marrakech
Plan this trip: Marrakech
Open the trip builder with Marrakech already filled in. Flights, stays and everything else are priced together in one quote, prepared by a person on our team.
