Modern Marrakech: Gueliz
As with many "exotic" cities around the world, Marrakech has the side that looks "different" from tourists' own cities, and the side that looks much like any other city in the world.
The center of Marrakech's "new" town is Gueliz, and within this neighborhood is the Jardin Marjorelle. This is the house and gardens of the painter Jacques Marjorelle, later bought and restored by Yves Saint Laurent to live in with his partner Pierre Bergé.
It's painted in a brilliant blue, and the gardens are lushly planted with trees...
...and cacti. I enjoyed my time there, but it does cost 70 dirhams to enter the garden, and 30 dirhams to enter the artist studio which now contains the Berber Museum (small, but quite good). So at 100 dirhams altogether, or about US$10, it's much more expensive than the other museums and palaces which are state-run and cost only 10 dirhams, or about US$1.
On the way from Jardin Marjorelle to the center of Gueliz, I passed by less architecturally significant buildings...
...but also fun in their own way! These don't appear in the guidebooks about Marrakech.
In the central part of Gueliz is the Carre Eden shopping center, which could be just like any other shopping center in Europe.
Complete with a food court with Domino's Pizza, Wok to Walk (a Chinese food chain), and llaollao (a frozen yogurt chain).
A bit away is an open-air mixed use shopping area with more chain stores, like Stradivarius from Inditex.
And of course, McDonald's! From what I could see, there wasn't anything particularly interesting or different about the menu here, otherwise I would have tried it.
And a parting shot of a mega-mall on the road to the airport.
So really, Marrakech is much like many other cities around the world, with the more historic areas which tourists want to see, along with newer areas. What I appreciate about Marrakech is that the historic areas haven't been transformed into a Disneyland, that they are still populated with regular people going about their daily lives.
