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Koutoubia Mosque at Sunset, Marrakesh

The Koutoubia Mosque (also seen in the photo gallery on this earlier page) is the largest mosque in Marrakesh, located adjacent to the square. The minaret is 253 feet in height and was completed in the 12th century. Its name comes from the Arabic for “book” (koutoub), because there was originally a book market at its base. It’s design and structure were the inspiration for the Hassan Tower in Rabat.

This photo was taken with a Canon EOS 6D, EF24-105mm f/4L IS lens, 1/200 sec at f/10, ISO 640 captured on a Lexar 400x SDXC UHS-1 memory card.

A Snake Charmer in the main square in Marrekesh

This is one of my favorite images from our trip to Morocco. The snake charmer was a very animated and exaggerated character. But, I guess it takes an unusally interesting person to want to charm snakes. I welcome your impressions and comments on this image. The photo was taken a telephoto lens.

As we walked the streets of Marrakesh, there were so many interesting subjects to photograph. There were the old world customs and modern corporate foods. Throughout all of Morocco, when we travelled by bus or walked down the streets, there were frequent, small cafes or restaurants. Almost universally, groups of men were sitting at the tables having tea and talking. We frequently saw signs on establishments for American corporate food and drink businesses.

One of the greatest treats of all was the main square in Marrakesh, Jemaa al-Fnaa. It’s enormous and lined with shops and vendors in the buildings that surround the square. During the day, the square houses other attractions including musicians, dancers and snake charmers. At night, the square is totally transformed by hundreds of booths set up with all types of food being cooked and served to visitors and residents.

There are five images below. Be sure you scroll down to see them all. You can also click on the first one and then there will be arrows on the images you can use to navigate to the next or previous image.

Here is a good Wikipedia link describing the Landmarks of Marrakesh.

CLick on the first image to show a larger size and then you can navigate forward and backward using the arrows.

In the evening, after Cathleen had her henna design applied to her hand, we went to dinner at a wonderful Moroccan restaurant inside a tent. During our meal, a group of three men and a fourteen year old boy played music and sang for us. They were great and the fourteen year old who played the drum was amazing. He was able to do some impressive things playing the drum, as this video shows. It was pretty dark in the tent so the quality of this iPhone video is a bit grainy.

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