Street Scenes of Marrakech

In Marrakech, it is common for buildings to be plain on the outside and to feature elaborate interior courtyards.   Minarets dot the skyline.  In Morocco, as with the Moorish architecture of southern Spain, the minarets are square, unlike most of the Muslim world that has round minarets.

These two women enjoy a chat in the partial shade under some lattice work.  The Arabic spoken in Morocco differs somewhat from the Arabic spoken in the rest of North Africa and the Middle East.  The Ottoman Empire never extended as far west as Morocco, so the many words of Arabic that were imported from Turkish did not become part of the vocabulary in Morocco.

The medina, or old city, in Marrakech includes a huge square, the Djemaa El-Fna, that features vendors, snake charmers, musicians, and tourists.  These are some fo the buildings that line the square.

 This man emerged from a building in a quiet corner of Marrakech and locked up for the evening.

Vendors in the old section of Marrakech display their products in  the plazas, streets, sidewalks, and alleyways,  It is often common for people to hang rugs from their roofs to air them out in the sun.  It seems chaotic to Americans unaccustomed to such a rush of activity and crowds of people.