Your tour today takes in a number of museums and a couple of beautiful gardens: all of them are tucked away and provide educational and informative respite from the bustle of the city. Bert Flint, a Dutch anthropologist and long-time resident of Marrakesh, has spent a lifetime studying and visiting all the peoples of the Sahara along the trade routes from Morocco to Timbuktu, and collected an impressive array of artefacts along the way. These form the basis of the Maison Tiskiwin museum, as good an overview of the culture and history of the region as you’ll find.
Next door is the Dar Si Said Museum, a small 19th Century palace, and home to an interesting and attractive collection of traditional Marrakesh arts and crafts dating back many generations. From here you head just outside the city walls to the Jardin Majorelle. Created by a French painter, the compact and attractive garden houses plants from across the globe, dotted with fountains and hiding a beautiful villa. The villa and fountains are painted an electric and eye-catching blue colour and it’s perhaps this boldness which appealed so much to Yves Saint-Laurent that he bought the gardens! The former director and designer at the Jardin Majorelle, Mr Chabane, has a gorgeous garden and museum in the Palmeraie outside the city, where he keeps a private art gallery of contemporary Moroccan artists, and this will be the final stop for the day.
