Our short stay in Marrakech was packed with activity and we barely scratched the surface. We haven’t visited most sites and historic buildings, instead going with the flow of the active city. I really wish we’d seen more but.. I also am very happy with what we have seen and done. Today was a perfect example. Sonia (who we know through the riad, which we found out about from Hassan!) brought us to her art designer that decorates her riads, Abdess Anamil (ABDesign). He is a very knowledgeable and articulate buyer and seller of African art and antiquities. Sonia brought us to his gallery deep in the pathways of Marrakech.

But first…! we had to say “goodbye to “see you next time” to the team at Riad Alnadine. Simo was particularly insightful and helpful in so many ways.

These little birdies gave us a sweet send off as well. They fly into the open courtyard of the riad and dance around us for crumbs each morning.

En route to the art gallery.. familiar sights.

The art gallery itself was big and filled to capacity with pieces from all over Africa. At one point I needed to go to the bathroom and it turned out that a nook of some of our favorite art was actually had the toilet hidden beneath!

African art includes a lot of clearly phallic pieces.. which I guess

We then went shopping again- you simply cannot imagine how many tiny shops are tucked into the massive maze! We still probably only saw less than a third of the souks. We even exchanged a product from the previous day that had a broken zipper- we weren’t sure that exchanges were even possible (we suspect refunds are not!), but they didn’t hesitate.

We grabbed a bite to eat at Camacho Chef Cheriff. It got tons of great reviews and was bright and located conveniently. The excited greeter told me “guaranteed no bloody diarrhea!”.. I mean.. that is good to know.. just maybe tell me without telling me?

We weren’t sure about the size and type of meat so our waitress happily brought me back into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and showed me the bowl of ground meat and the buns that they would go in. All very fresh thankfully because.. when it was served it looked uncooked. It WAS cooked mind you, it just somehow stayed red. Odd but.. glad about that guarantee!

Oh and, since the style is common in this area and I’m SURE everybody wants to see it, here is that restaurant’s bathroom.

While we shopped and ate, Steve went to one of the sites we had talked about for many days- Ben Youssef Madrasa, a stunning school. Here are some of Steve’s <always> impressive shots:

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.. we really want to return. Alas.. we had to fly out this afternoon. One quick night in Madrid then home tomorrow morning.