Doors 320 – Doors of Marrakesh, Morocco, January 2025 (Part I)
In January this year, my wife and I decided to enjoy a winter break in Marrakesh, as we were desperate for some sun after a poor summer in 2024. Key to our choice of destination was that we could fly from Bristol airport, which just makes things so much easier for us. We brought our daughter along with us too, as she was on a break from University.
We hadn’t done too much research before the trip and were open to a wholly new experience. I had been to Egypt many years ago when I was in my late teens, but otherwise North Africa was something of a mystery to be discovered.
Marrakesh is a busy, dusty, and ancient city, with an incredible culture and heritage, and although our stay was short, we took in so many sights and activities. Of course, we were presented with thousands of doors, and in all my travels in the UK and abroad, I don’t think I have seen so many doors worthy of sharing on Thursday Doors. I expect this is going to be a long series of posts from Marrakesh.
In this first post, I will start with our hotel called Les Borjs de la Kasbah, a riad (a traditional, multi-story house or palace built around a central courtyard or garden), which was located at the south of the Medina, the old walled part of the city.
This hotel had been lovingly restored over a period of four years by local craftsmen from a complex of six small town houses (dars) and one riad. The restoration included traditional doors and balcony windows, as well as tiles, fountains and other details. I hope you enjoy this collection of doors and get a small sense of the traditional style of the riad.
This has been a deliberately gentle introduction to Marrakesh before getting into some hard core doors over the coming weeks. The hotel was the perfect base for some lengthy walks, mostly northwards, to some of the tourist hotspots, but the long walks meant that there were an awful lot of back streets and doors to get through on the way.
I thought I’d leave you with an earworm, that naturally I have in my head, because of the district we stayed in. Rock the Kasbah!
If you have made it this far, you probably like doors, and you really ought to take a look at the No Facilities blog by Dan Anton who has taken over the hosting of Thursday Doors from Norm 2.0 blog. Links to more doorscursions can be found in the comments section of Dan Anton’s weekly Thursday Doors post.
Natural adventures 
Fabulous! This is going to be a really interesting series. Don’t recall seeing many doors from this part of the world.
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Thank you, this was a very gentle start, they get interesting next time.
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Something to look forward to
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Such a beautiful, graceful style, isn’t it? Complete culture shock, I imagine… xx
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Culture shock is right, in so many ways. I have a couple of fun stories which I hope I will have time to expand on in this series.
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Lovely introduction and presentation of Marakkesh, Stephen. I would love to visit that city some day.
I like the roof garden and the pool area both have a serene feel to them.
Great photo and angle in the first door in the small courtyard, thank you also for the closeup details.
I look forward to what you share in this series. What a wonderful place. The weather looked great from the outdoor photo of the courtyard.
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Thank you. Hold tight, there are some amazing doors to come. This was a gentle start.
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Beautiful doors, homes, architecture! That’s a place I would love to visit one day. Looking forward to seeing more.
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It is a great place to visit. Full-on though.
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This is a very nice introduction, Steve. I am looking forward to the series from Marakkesh.
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Lots to look forward to.
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ooh, what a lovely place for you to be, looking forward to these
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A very gentle intro. Lots of crazy doors to come.
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I’ve been waiting patiently for this set of doors to begin . . .
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Buckle up, it will be quite a ride over the next few weeks.
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That’s what we like to hear . . .
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