Our trip to Marrakech was a bit of an experiment as now that Mrs Y has reduced her working week to just three days, we wondered if a long weekend away would fit in to this Thursday to Sunday sized ‘gap’. I was also using up some spare days holiday, so it looked to be a good use of our extra gifted time.
We left home at 4:30AM, just as it started to rain, and the further we drove, the harder it rained, finally driving in to a torrential downpour that worsened as we circled the M25 just before we turned off for the M23 to Gatwick, the rain stopping just as we pulled in to the long stay car park, which was lucky as we hadn’t packed coats, just a Pac-A-Mac.
Despite some early flights being delayed by this torrential rain storm, British Airways BA2668 departed just 30 minutes behind schedule.
We had a really smooth flight down to Marrakesh Menara Airport, enjoying some time to read and take a little nap, arriving ahead of our scheduled time.
Now that people are travelling again, and Morocco being a good place to catch some pre-Christmas sunshine, there was a bit of a queue at passport control, but we were efficiently processed and were soon in our pre-booked transportation headed to the Dar Najat, the Riad that would be our home for the next three nights.
Checking in to the Riad was a delight, sat on a sun bathed sofa up on the roof terrace with a cold beer and very friendly chat about Marrakesh and the sightseeing opportunities.
Our bag appeared in our room, we unpacked swiftly then it was off out in to the medina to change some cash and start exploring all that Marrakesh had to offer. Our driver and his pal recommended changing money at The Hotel Ali, giving us some rough instructions on finding it. True to their word, The Hotel Ali had the best exchange rates in town.
After a wander around Jemaa el Fna we managed to find our way through the labyrinthine passages back towards the hotel taking a brief stop for some dinner. Having not eaten since breakfast in the lounge at Gatwick we devoured our meal in record time before meandering our way back to the riad.
We finished the day with a cold beer up on the rooftop terrace just as the sun was setting.
Our room, on the ground floor was very quiet and dark, both of us sleeping soundly!
mrandmrsyoung 