Morocco Bound

In the same time zone as the UK, Morocco is an easy three and a quarter hours flying time from Gatwick. On the other hand, it’s considerably warmer and has a kindly population who, if they have a particular fault, it is to drive whatever vehicle, either two or four wheeled, as fast as possible and with as little regard as possible for their own safety.

A corner of the central well of Les Trois Mages riad

On a recent trip with my wife, our son and his American wife, we took off from Gatwick on a cold and frosty day and emerged from the modern airport building into a balmy evening in Marrakech. Never having been to Morocco before, I had no idea what to expect (I’d seen the outline of the Atlas Mountains on an incredibly clear day from a high point in Spain) but I had no pre-conceived ideas.

Very old, very beautiful, very comfortable

We would be staying for five days and a taxi had been organised to pick us up. Our driver, Hussein, was waiting for us as we emerged from the airport’s Arrivals and escorted us to possibly the oldest Mercedes still on the roads in Morocco. Driving us to the riad, Les Trois Mages, Hussein started our education about exactly what a riad is.

A lamp shop in the Medina

“Very old, very beautiful, very comfortable,” he exclaimed gesturing to me with his right hand. At this point his English skidded to a halt and to continue with the conversation, it fell to me to give my limited French an airing (had this been in Spain, it wouldn’t have been a problem but French, and Moroccan French was about to prove interesting). I also noticed a certain silence coming from the back seat as my family waited with baited breathe to see how I coped with the subject of riads.

During the course of the next 10 minutes I learned very little about these wonderful buildings but a fair amount about Hussein’s family, including the fact that his father had reached the venerable age of 109 and that the old gentleman had led a quiet life in the country.

Hussein thought this was a pretty good recipe for a sensible way of life and we continued talking about Morocco (he, along with every other resident we talked to thought the current monarch, King Mohammed VI is amazingly good for the country), that change is coming to the country at high speed, the health system is improving and the increasing use of technology is going to make everybody’s lives infinitely better.

Having discovered that nearly every house has a great big satellite antenna perched on the roof and that most people use a mobile phone rather than a landline, it seemed that Morocco had leapt straight into the 21^st century.

The Medina

By now we had arrived at an archway through the ancient walls that surround the old part of the city, the Medina (there’s a newer area outside the walls and vast building projects, including a golf course, are underway as you drive in the direction of the Atlas Mountains).

Hussein drove us expertly through narrow streets and suddenly drew up at the top end of a narrow street. “We are arriving,” he announced proudly as he marched us down the lane. He point at an anonymous door, knocked firmly and we were welcomed inside by Aidan Webster, the manager of the Riad Les Trois Mages.

Aidan Webster, manager of the Les Trois Mages riad in Marrakech

The basis of the architecture of the riad came from the Romans and from the Moorish occupation of Spain. Built round a central courtyard that is open to the sky, there are no windows to the exterior and this provides exceptional security for the family.

The living rooms are located on the ground floor, bedrooms on upper floors and generally there’s a terrace at the top.

According to Aidan, “The inward focus allows for family privacy (the central courtyard should not be able to be seen from the derb (street), to avoid any prying eyes), weather protection (hot summers, cool winters) and noise reduction (metre thick adobe/pise walls – mud with chopped straw and lime). More recently and with the influx of foreigners buying them up, the definition has become slightly more generalised.

He continued, “Depending how traditional you go, the description in the Koran states ‘two aisles intersecting and at an angle (usually 90 degrees) cutting the garden into four parterres, a garden of four rivers – water, milk, honey and (usually) wine’. Sometimes a riad includes a douiria (little house/apartment) for staff and usually a central fountain and decorated to the degree of wealth of the owner.” It’s still possible to buy a riad (which will probably need restoration) for around £250,000.

A typical shop in the heart of the Souk

Les Trois Mages is lucky to have Saida as the resident chef. She cooked us a wonderful dinner for our first evening and then as we, with all the other guests in the riad decided we’d like to stay in for New Year’s Eve, she prepared, as the main course, wonderful seafood pastilles.

Apart from enjoying our first two days wandering around the souk (the covered market), our son had decided we should all take part in a morning’s cookery course run through the Maison Arabe. (This shouldn’t be confused with the restaurant called the Café Arabe where we had simply awful food – I didn’t know it was possible to turn meat into something grey and completely unidentifiable).

Mohammed Nahir (background) and his assistant Aziza

We were driven to a glorious building on the outskirts of the city. There we were greeted by Mohammed Nahir and his assistant Aziza who spent the morning overseeing our primitive attempts to cook a chicken tagine. The tagine pot is a large clay dish with a strange conical-shaped lid and if the food is to be cooked properly, it takes time and considerable knowledge of the use of herbs and spices.

By midday, our class of nine people sat down to enjoy our efforts that were, I have to say, quite simply delicious. Could we repeat it without a recipe? No, it is too complex and needs, I suspect years of practice, but under Mohammed’s eagle eye, we coped to the point where even the near vegetarians in our class ate their lunch at high speed and we left clutching Mohammed’s recipe.

Back to Britain

A busy day in the Medina

The problem with trips of this sort is that they end all too soon. Our son and his wife had a glorious carpet to take back to the US (it started out at around £600 and they finally settled on £180 with the shopkeeper), we had several hundred pictures of the city and a whole host of wonderful memories and it was with some reluctance that we climbed on the plane to return to the UK.

We caught the bus to the car park at Gatwick to find the car doors frozen shut, ice on the inside of the windscreen and a temperature of 23 Fahrenheit. As we crept out of the car park, our conversation quickly reverted to the warmth and pleasures of Marrakech.

For information on La Maison Arabe go on-lin at www.lamaisonarabe.com and you can contact Aidan Webster at the Riad Les Trois Mages at http://www.lestroismages.com

© Stewart Andersen and Stewart Andersen’s Property Blog, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Stewart Andersen and Stewart Andersen’s Property Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.