General Morocco Questions?
Hey everyone,
I´m going to be heading to Morocco (I live in Madrid so I will most probably be visiting the coastal towns, aswell as Marrakesh) for a couple of days in a few weeks and would like to know a few things as I´ve never been there before.
- What are some good 'touristy', relatively cheap items/souvenirs to pick up for my friends and family who wont be joining myself?
- What are some more quality, typically Moroccan items that i could pick up for myself (I´m an 18 year old girl)?
- What goods are MUST BUYS (leather, jewellery, food etc.)?
- Will I be able to get by on only English and Spanish?
- What are the MUST DOS in Marrakesh?
- What will the weather be like early november?
- Are there any clothing guidelines that I should stick by (as I mainly wear dresses but I don´t want to offend anyone)?
Sorry for the whole heap of questions! I would most thankful for any replies!
Thanks in advance!
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Morocco's most used foreign language is french, spanish is widely understood in norther cities though.
Marrakech is a touristic city whre you will find a lot of small souvenirs to buy for your friends.
Leather is not expensive and of a good quality specially in Fes and Marrakech.
You can also buy the Moroccan traditional footware "babouche" or "Sherbeel".
The weather in November is not stable it can be rainy/cold or sunny.
For dressing code, you can wear any casual dress avoid short dresses…
Good luck and enjoy your trip.
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u need to buy babouches, kaftans (moroccan shirts) perfumes, oils (like lavender, argane jasmine..)
U must try the moroccan tea,eat couscous and pastella, tajine…food is wonderful
go to the bath (hamman) to have an scrub and relax
see the menara, go to jemaa fna place, see the palms..go to explore the market (zouk), go to pacha disco.
the weather is fine but at night it gets cold. They speak french and arabic mostly, u can dress normal except if u want to go into a mosque..don't forget to deal with the sellers.
also pottery is really nice and lather bags (also u can find copies of louis vuitton, dior…)
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First of all i wanted to welcome to your beautiful neighbor country, I'm sure you will love it in here, as for the items you wanted to buy, well you have endless choices, from artisans clothing to pottery items, to souvenir decorative goods, it will only depend on your likes and your pocket.
the cities i recommend are the classic ones, tangier Marrakesh, Fes, Rabat, Casablanca and agadir. but if you really want to know morocco, i recommend small towns, they are naturally fascinating genuinely untouched and it's people are warm and generous with strangers.
Que la pases muy bien, y que ojala te guste lo que veras, porque estoy seguro que a marruecos y a su gente lo único que tienes que hacer es venir una vez para caer enamorada de su encanto.
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I hope you have a wonderful time there!
I have fond memories of spending a month in Morocco. It left me with so many impressions. I think that Marrakesh is the most exotic and wildest city I have ever visited. (not wild as in "night-life wild", I mean because it is so wildly different!).
OK - Marrakesh; Wandering around in the souks is just nice in itself. I bought a great leather purse there which I still have. My husband bought some leather sandals and slippers which he also loves. My favourite thing was to go to the main square during the evening, watch the snake-charmers, "dentists", story-tellers etc. We liked eating harira at a restaurant at that square - they had a huge pot which probably boiled all day. The restaurant wasn´t the best-looking I admit, we made jokes…. but it´s all in the character of being there. They always played this music…. - when we asked about it the waiter took us around the corner to a man selling cassettes and showed us which artist, so we bought a few. And at this square in the morning you can always buy freshly-squeezed orange juice for next to nothing (make sure they make it fresh for you, don´t take it from the pitcher.).
We usually spoke French in Morocco, English didn´t help much. You might use Spanish more.
Cheap, nice souveniers…? Jewelery, leather items, sweets.
We did most of our shopping in Rabat - the shopowners let us walk around in peace without trying to drag us into their stores.
As long as your clothes are a bit loose and not too short or low cut you shouldn´t have any worries about offending anyone. I found that south of Casablanca people wore more traditional & conservative clothing, but in the northern half, things looked rather European, at least in the cities.
Can´t say anything about the weather except that it can only be better than when I was there (middle of August… don´t ever do that yourself). My friends were there in March once, and they were wearing sweaters and jackets in the higher altitudes (mountains). I think Marrakesh is somewhat high up ? We found that the more low-key we dressed, the less we were hassled as tourists. Not that we fit into the locals, but we didn´t stick out so much. I think that´s a good general rule of dress when travelling in N.Africa and the Middle East. It has worked for me.
We spent 10 days in Moulay Bursalem - at the time it was a holiday - coastal town, but actually we were almost the only European tourists. Long long beaches, quite nice. It was a bit of a hassle to get to back then, perhaps its changed. We liked being away from tourists and being with locals. If you´re on the coast, you might be able to take a boat trip early one morning to see the local birds & nature, and it is also interesting to see the fishers selling their daily catch in the late afternoon (they had even caught small sharks where we had been swimming).
Just for the record, we found Casablanca rather boring, but different people like different things. It´s a big city, nice enough, BIG mosque built by his Majesty…..(don´t know if you can go there if you´re not Muslim), but not much else. We wanted to see the other side of the culture, which we did. For that fact, we found the train ride between Casa and the airport to show more of this other side (but also a lot of poverty).
What ever you do I hope you really enjoy it! Morocco is a place I really want to return to - when my kids are a bit older we want to take them for a camel tour & camping in the desert (and NOT in August). Sorry this was so long. I just love talking (/writing) about that country. Have fun!!!!
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