Marrakech

I stayed in Marrackech last fall. There are so many riads it is a bit confusing and time consuming to figure out a good one. We stayed at Riad Al Faras for one night, went on a camel trek one night, then found another riad the third night. Riad Al Faras was a very nice place, but a bit on the pricier side. The second riad we stayed at was very cheap and nice - not sure of the name though. I would check out TripAdvisor.com and others to find out info on the ones you listed. Just type the names into google and you will usually come back with some websites that have reviews on them.

Thanks for your reply. Would you have a preference as to whether or not you stayed in the Medina or outside of it? We are planning on day tripping outside of Marrakech. For you camel trip did you need to stay overnight elsewhere or could you have done a camel trip and then come back to your place in Marrakech? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

From Marrakech the camel treks are out near Zagora in the High Atlas Mountains - at least this is what I found. We went with this company: http://www.saharaexpe.ma/index.htm It is about a 6-8 hour ride out to the desert from Marrakech. You leave early in the morning, drive all day, have a few stops for pictures and lunch. Then you arrive at the camel place and do a sunset camel ride. You then arrive at a berber camp and will have dinner. We had an amazing tangine chicken dinner. The people there then played some instruments and sang some "berber" songs. Our group of 6 then decided to sleep under the stars instead of inside the tent. -they told us the tourists usually do that, lol. Then the next morning we were up and off to a sunrise camel ride. Then the long ride back to Marrakech. It is beautiful scenery for the whole trip. This is the only company I could find that would do it in 2 days/1 night. Most want you to do a minimum of 3 days/2 nights since it takes so long to get there.

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I'm pretty sure any excursion you find will provide the sleeping for you - a tent in the middle of the desert. It was fun, although a bit sore to ride the camel the next morning. We of course took some classic dune pics too.

I would prefer to stay in the Medina area. It is really lively in the Medina, but is quiet in the Riads, no matter how close they may be. The second one we stayed in was only about 3 buildings or so from the Medina and it was quiet. Okay quiet except for the prayer alarms (not sure of the right word there) that go off - they went off twice throughout the night, but we were also there in the middle of Ramadan, so not sure if that is normally done. It is also interesting to wind through the streets off the medina, getting a little lost, but eventually finding your way. Just watch out for all the mopeds - I thought I was going to lose a toe or two, but made it out fine :)

http://www.cameltrekking.com/ is another place we were looking at, but we could only do 1 night, so had to book elsewhere.

Also eat plenty of tagine while you are there. It is great and I personally say that Marrakech had the best food of all the places I visited throughout Europe and there last fall. I wouldn't recommend trying to bring back a tagine though - mine completely shattered even though I had it wrapped very well. They're just made of clay pot material.