Sorry for the delay in posting this but things have been hectic since we got home with swarms of granddaughters coming to stay. Well that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.

Today is our last day in Marrakech and there is one thing left to do from our list. Years ago on an earlier visit we went to the world famous Jardin Majorelle at the former home of Yves St Laurent and, to be honest, fabulous as they were I felt that the attention of a good Head Gardener was needed to tidy things up a bit. We decided to go and have another look to see how (if?) things have improved. And boy was it worth it.

We had pre booked tickets online for a specific time slot and this is worth the effort as it saves a lot of faff when you get there. We walked down to the Jemaa Al Fna hailed a ‘petit taxi’ and negotiated a price for the trip; he dropped us in the main road outside so we only had a fifty yard walk and straight in. Our tickets were for the gardens themselves and for the Pierre Bergé Museum of Berber Arts. And there’s a café too!

Things have certainly changed; practically all the buildings are painted in the famous ‘Majorelle Blue’ and on a sunny day this looks wonderful. There is now a circulation route that takes you through the gardens and that head gardener I wanted has been very busy. The selection of plants and the layout is glorious and there are plenty of benches to sit on to enjoy the view; there are obvious places that have been set up for the ‘Insta Generation’ to do their shots and everywhere there was birdsong. It was lovely.

Here are some photos, a small slection, which I hope will give you an idea of the place…

We walked round the gardens at a leisurely pace then visited the Berber Museum (no photography allowed) but it was brilliant with artefacts, tools, traditional clothes and wonderful jewellery. Emerging from that into the conveniently situated souvenir shop we bought a few mementos and headed for the café to rehydrate and eat some cake. Excellent. Here is a selection of my photographs which I hope will give you a good feel for what we saw.

Once we left there’s a well organised taxi rank although you need to agree a price with the driver before you get in!

Back in the city centre we headed off for some lunch and then trailed round some favourite shops collecting a few things we wanted to bring home. Then it was back to the riad and a start on the packing . Out to dinner at our favourite restaurant and back for an early night as we have a ridiculously early start in the morning.

10 April 2022