Discover Marrakch in 36 Hours

IN 1939, George Orwell wrote of Westerners flocking to Marrakech in search of “camels, castles, palm-trees, Foreign Legionnaires, brass trays and bandits.” Ever since, the city has been ravishing visitors with its teeming souks, ornate palaces and sybaritic night life. In recent years, a succession of high-end openings and restorations — most notably, the lavish reopening of the hotel La Mamounia — has transformed the city into an obligatory stop for jet-setters. Yet despite Marrakesh’s new cachet, the true treasures of the enigmatic city still hide down dusty side streets and behind sagging storefronts.

La Mamounia Marrakech: A legend

La Mamounia, Marrakech: Few hotels have inspired more glamorous and romantic stories than the grande dame of Marrakech, La Mamounia. The hotel has hosted politicians and celebrities since it opened in the 1920s. In 1943, Winston Churchill asked Franklin D Roosevelt to join him on one of his many visits, describing the hotel as 'the loveliest place on earth'. Alfred Hitchcock used it as the backdrop for his 1956 version of The Man Who Knew Too Much; Hollywood stars including Marlene Dietrich and Charlie Chaplin soon followed.

Marrakech adds modern amenities

Marrakech: Tourists wandering through the ornately tiled rooms of the late-9th-century Bahia Palace, home to a sultan's vizier, his four wives, 24 concubines and countless offspring, can only imagine the domestic juggling act required to get through the day.

Not far from here, in a jewel-box-like palace of similar vintage, Driss Segueni ponders a more modern problem. Namely, how to provide for the upkeep of a palace bursting with intricate mosaic tile, sculpted plasterwork and areas like slaves and harem quarters that just don't figure into the typical 21st-century lifestyle.