Marrakech rewards a plan. The medina is gloriously disorienting, the sales patter relentless, and the best of the city — courtyard palaces, tiled madrasas, gardens, and the High Atlas an hour's drive south — hides behind plain pink walls. Four days is the sweet spot: three for the city, one for the mountains.

  • When to go: March–May and October–November; summer regularly exceeds 38°C
  • Where to stay: a riad inside the medina for atmosphere; Gueliz for modern comfort
  • Cash and haggling: dirhams for the souks; opening offers are typically a fraction of the asking price
  • Getting around: the medina is walking-only; agree taxi fares before setting off

Day 1: the medina and Jemaa el-Fnaa

Morning. Get your bearings at the Koutoubia Mosque, whose 12th-century minaret — around 77 metres of Almohad geometry — is visible from most of the city and makes the one reliable landmark when the lanes swallow you. Non-Muslims cannot enter, but the surrounding gardens are open to all.

Afternoon. Plunge into the souks north of Jemaa el-Fnaa: leather, brass, babouches and carpets in roughly concentric trades. Aim loosely for the dyers' souk and let yourself get lost; a compass heading works better than a map here.

Evening. Jemaa el-Fnaa at dusk is the show itself — storytellers, gnawa musicians, orange-juice carts, smoke rising off the food stalls. Eat at the numbered grill stands or take a rooftop cafe terrace on the square's edge and watch it boil below.

Day 2: palaces and tombs

Morning. The Bahia Palace first, when the light rakes its painted cedar ceilings and zellige courtyards, then the Saadian Tombs, rediscovered in 1917, where the Chamber of the Twelve Columns is as rich a room as Morocco owns. Both are in the Kasbah district and queue early.

Afternoon. The Ben Youssef Madrasa, a 16th-century Koranic college around a marble courtyard, is the medina's most beautiful interior; the ruined, stork-crowned ramparts of the El Badi Palace nearby make its melancholy counterpoint.

Evening. Book a table at a riad restaurant for a slow lamb tagine or a pastilla, then an early night — tomorrow starts gently.

Day 3: Majorelle, Gueliz and the hammam

Morning. Taxi to the Jardin Majorelle, the cobalt-blue garden restored by Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé; buy timed tickets online well ahead, and pair it with the adjacent Yves Saint Laurent Museum.

Afternoon. Explore Gueliz, the French-built new town — galleries, concept stores and pavement cafes make an easy counterweight to the medina.

Evening. Take a proper hammam: a scrub, black soap and an hour of steam at one of the historic bathhouses or your riad's own. You will sleep like a stone.

Day 4: into the High Atlas

Morning. Hire a driver (or join a small group tour) for the roughly 90-minute run south to Imlil, a Berber village at around 1,740 metres that serves as the trailhead for Mount Toubkal — at 4,167 metres, North Africa's highest peak. You are not climbing it today; a guided half-day walk through walnut groves and mud-brick hamlets towards the Tizi n'Tamatert pass delivers the scenery without the suffering.

Afternoon. Lunch on a terrace tagine with the snowline above you — many village houses serve trekkers — then descend. The Ourika Valley makes a gentler alternative if mountain roads are not your thing.

Evening. Back in Marrakech, one last rooftop dinner facing the Koutoubia, lit against the night.

Tip: In the souks and on Jemaa el-Fnaa, agree a price before accepting any service — a henna tattoo, a photograph with a monkey handler, a "shortcut" from a helpful stranger. A firm, smiling "la, shukran" (no, thank you) is the most useful phrase in the city.