I have to admit that on most trips to Marrakech I rarely visited tourist sites, perhaps one or two at a time. However on this latest adventure we visited two of the famous gardens in Marrakech. The first is Menara. While it is called a garden it doesn’t really qualify in my opinion as a garden, there are a few flowers and loads of olive trees. The highlight of the garden is the water basin, that dates from the 12th century. It’s full of gigantic fish that can not be caught by people but you’re free to feed them. (I have a video of this I’ll try to add!). The Atlas mountains are visable beautifully from Menara and really if you’re going that is the thing to see, not the “garden”aspects. The garden was public property but has been leased to a European company who holds it for several million Euros for perhaps ten years I think. At night there is a light show and telling of Moroccan folklore for 30E but that just didn’t seem worth it for us.

My husband and sister in law told me that when they were younger it was quite common for Marrakechi families to visit the garden, bringing music and food and have a picnic party amongst the olive groves. This is not allowed now and my husband scared me out of my mind by suggesting snakes and scorpions lived amongst the trees. Such a happy thought. All in all it’s a great place to stop by for some quite outside of the medina, but sadly it didn’t really live up to my expectations.

At the water basin, you can see in the background the stands for the night show.

The pavillion can be seen behind us and if you look really closely you should be able to see the Atlas Mountains.