Marrakech - Essaouira Travel Guides | Marrakech | Sub Regions | Marrakech - Essaouira

Essaouira, ‘little picture’, is one of those stage set places: you half expect to see plumed cavalry coming round the corner, or a camera crew filming some diva up on the ramparts. A purpose-built 18th- century military port, it doesn’t seem to have changed much since the end of the days of sail. The port hums with activity, the chunky stone ramparts stand guard. In town, the walls are white, windows and shutters a cracked and faded blue, while arches and columns glow a sandy camel-brown. Three crescent moons on a city gate provide a touch of the heraldic, while the surfers and the much- exhibited local naïve school of artists hint at Essaouira’s hippy days, back in the 1970s. Tall feathery araucaria trees and palms along the ramparts add a Mediterranean touch. Only two hours by road from Marrakech, Essaouira has become popular with day-visitors. And as in the Red City, the European gentrifiers have arrived in droves, buying up the picturesque (if damp and crumbling) courtyard houses. Essaouira’s annual big moment comes in late May. Temporary stages go up on the parking lot outside the walls, and into the night the town thrills to the thrum of the guembri and Arabo-jazz fusion. Musicians from around the world come in to make this Morocco’s most happening musical event.

Sights

Museum of Sidi Mohammed ben Abdallah, T 044-472300. Officially: 0830-1200 and 1430-1800, except Fri 0830-1130 and 1500-1830, closed Tue. However, renovation works have kept the museum closed. At the time of writing, the re-opening date was uncertain. 10dh. Galerie des Arts Frédéric Damgaard, T 044-784446. 0900-1300 and 1500-1900.

Enclosed by walls with five main gates, the médina is Essaouira’s major attraction. Entering from Bab Doukkala, the central thoroughfare is Rue Mohammed Zerktouni, which leads into Avenue de l’Istiqlal, where there is the Grand Mosque, (closed to non-Muslim visitors) and just off, on Derb Laâlouj, the Ensemble Artisanal and the Museum of Sidi Mohammed ben Abdallah, which houses the Museum of Traditional Art and Heritage of Essaouira, an interesting collection of weapons and handicrafts including woodwork and carpets. A former riad, there are also examples of marquetry-decorated stringed instruments and documents on Amazigh music. Upstairs is the ethnographic collection, featuring Chichaoua carpets, embroidery and jewellery. Look out for the mystico-religious signs typical of the area – Essaouira is located at the meeting point of Amazigh (Tachelhit) and Arabic speaking areas, so such symbols are richer here than elsewhere.

Avenue de l’Istiqlal leads into Avenue Okba ben Nafi, on which is the small Galerie des Arts Frédéric Damgaard. This private gallery, run by a long-time Danish resident and amateur of all things Souiri, exhibits the work of local painters, for the most part working in a colourful naïve tradition. At the end of Avenue Okba ben Nafi, the gate on the right leads into Place Prince Moulay El Hassan, the heart of the town’s social life. The town’s souks are mainly near the junction between Rue Mohammed Zerktouni and Rue Mohammed El Gorry, although there is an area of woodworkers inside the Skala walls to the north of Place Prince Moulay El Hassan, where fine pieces can be picked up after some bargaining banter.

At the northeast end of Rue Mohammed Zerktouni, close to Bab Doukkala, is the mellah, the former Jewish quarter, an area of significant size, underlining the prominence of the Hebrew population probably present in Essaouira at the time of its foundation. As in other North African cities, the Jews at one time formed an important minority but they deserted their homes in the 1950s and 1960s. Today the mellah is the poorest quarter of the town (most houses lack running water and loos). There are rumours, however, of a major hotel project. Many houses have ocean views, so the site is obviously attractive to would-be developers.

Entry to Skala du Port is via a kiosk close to the Porte de la Marine. 10dh.

Off Place Prince Moulay El Hassan is the small but vibrant harbour, which principally supports a fishing fleet, and is worth a visit. It is still possible to see the work of traditional shipbuilders and repairers on the bustling quayside and nearby the lively fish market and open-air restaurant stalls serve many varieties of grilled fish (typically prices range from 10-25dh). The stone sea gate (the Porte de la Marine) linking harbour and médina was built in 1769 under Sultan Sidi Mohammed ben Abdallah. Local legend runs that the designs were by an Englishman converted to Islam. The neo-classical pediment displays the year of construction (1184 of the Hegira). From the Porte de la Marine you can head round the harbour to the Skala du Port, an old Portuguese sea defence and battery. From the top of the bastion there are extensive panoramic views of the harbour and the offshore islands, the Iles Purpuraires. The term ‘skala’, meaning coastal fortification in Moroccan Arabic, derives from the French ‘escale’ (landing point).

Free.

Further to the north of Place Prince Moulay El Hassan it is possible to get on to the ramparts of the Skala de la Ville from Rue de la Skala, close to its junction with Rue Darb Laâlouj. Crenellated walls protect a 200-m long raised artillery platform and an impressive array of decorated Spanish and other European cannon. From the tower of the North Bastion there are fine views north along the sea wall to the mellah and over the médina with its white buildings and blue shutters. The woodworkers’ souks are also here in arched chambers underneath the ramparts.

Quartier des Dunes, behind the Hotel Sofitel. For details of services, contact the presbytery on T 044-475895. Free.

Like other historic Moroccan coastal cities – Tangiers, for example, Essaouira has a long tradition of religious cohabitation. With the influx of foreign residents and visitors, the church has experienced something of a revival. During the spring Festival des Alizés, concerts are occasionally held here, too. While not of any great architectural interest (ecclesiastical architecture buffs should find time to take a look at the Neo-Moorish St Andrews, Tangiers or the cathedrals in Casablanca and Rabat), Essaouira’s church is the only one in Morocco which is allowed to ring its bells on Sunday for Mass at 1000.

Free, but the warden on hand to let you in welcomes a contribution – say 10dh a head. Best visited in mornings.

Outside the northern walls of Essaouira, just outside Bab Doukkala, are the Christian and Jewish cemeteries. The entrance to the Christian Cemetery is in the wall where the horse-drawn carriages park up, on your left as you come out of town through Bab Doukkala. Here you’ll find the graves of various European consuls who died converting Mogador into a trading post. About 200 m further on is the entrance to the Jewish Cemetery. If you can find the man with the key (knock loudly), you may discover the resting place of Leslie Hore-Belisha, inventor of the first pedestrian crossing light.

The P8 which runs from the south into Essaouira takes you to Diabat.

Broad stretches of windy sand make Essaouira a surf location – although such beaches are fine for walking, too. The trade wind (know locally as the alizé) makes it cold for swimming, but ideal for surfing. The northern Plage de Safi is fine in the summer, but can be dangerous during windy weather. South of the town, the beach is great for football – surely Essaouira must be a school for soccer champions. Past the Oued Ksob, the waves break against the remains of Borj El Baroud, a Portuguese fort. Local legend runs that this Lusitanian outpost was swallowed by the sand. A Soussi magician put the hex on it, as his region’s trade was being ruined by the Portuguese. The mouth of the Ksob is popular with birders, who point their binoculars at a large colony of yellow- legged herring gulls and a variety of migrating seabirds including black, little, sandwich, whiskered and white-winged terns. After the oued, you reach the village of Diabat, once famed as a hippy hangout. The Auberge Tangaro, one of the region’s legendary small hotels, survives from this time. Below Diabat, incoming tides turn the Oued Ksob into an impassable river.

These islands, visible from Essaouira, are strictly off limits to avoid disturbance of the birds. In calm weather, boat trips from the fishing port may run close to the islands. Your riad or hotel (or the port) may carry information.

Ocean mists give the inaccessible Purpurine Islands an extra mystery. In good weather the isles and their most famous residents, the rare Eleonora’s falcons, are visible with a good telescope from the jetty in Essaouira port. (Another area frequented by the falcons is the mouth of Oued Ksob to the south of the town, see above.) The creation of a regular daily ferry service to the islands is hopefully only a rumour: nothing should be allowed to disturb the nesting Eleonora’s falcons – after all they are threatened with extinction and have flown all the way from Madagascar. The falcons are onto a good thing on the Purpurines: the hundreds of gull nests provide ready fodder.

The islands’ name comes from the purple dye made there from molluscs in Phoenician and Roman times and on the main island, l’île du Pharaon, archaeologists in the 1950s found remains of vats for making garum, that fishpaste delicacy essential to Roman banquets. All in all, it is evident that the Purpurine Islands were quite the ancient off-shore industrial zone, producing luxury items for the Mediterranean élite.

Travel Guides | Marrakech | Sub Regions | Marrakech - Essaouira
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