Arriving in Marrakesh and the first night

The flight was uneventful with nothing to see until we got quite close to Marrakesh when the views were awesome! Lots of desert and views of the Atlas Mountains topped with snow in the distance.

On arrival at the airport we had to queue for customs for about 45 mins but we should have been a lot longer, for some reason we got moved into an express queue! A very good start to the holiday.

We bought our currency then headed outside to find about 50 taxi drivers holding up signs so it took us quite a while to find the sign with my name on it! The taxi driver was lovely and luckily spoke English even though I did try some French. Our Riad (Riad Goloboy) is in the old town next to the King's Palace so there are loads of police about which is reassuring.  The manager of the Riad met us out of the taxi and lead us down a maze of lanes til we got here. It doesn't even have a sign outside so we would never have found it on our own. Never.

He showed us our room and gave us a tour and it is so so beautiful. He then led us to the roof terrace which has amazing views of the ancient mosque tower (a twin of the Giralda in Seville). He then said he would bring us some mint tea and cookies so we took a seat. Even though it was dark it was still warm enough to sit outside with just a shirt all night so I had to carry my cardigan the whole time. The tea and cookies were great but it was 9pm so we thought we better get out and about.

We dumped our stuff in the room, gem put on her bumbag and out we went! We managed to find our way to the main square as we just followed the hordes. Busy is an understatement,  it was like Leicester Sq at midnight times a million. The square is a massive assault to the senses. Monkeys, people selling stuff, music, dancing,  food stalls, juice stalls,  smoke everywhere and oh so many people. It was incredible. The people trying to get us to eat at their stalls were quite intense but we settled on stall one as recommended by TripAdvisor. They weren't aggressive and it was the only stall we saw where a woman seemed to be in charge.

We weren't too hungry but we both had bread with delicious homemade chilli sauce and homemade tomato sauce. Gem had calamari and I had merguez sausages. We had a litre of water too and the whole lot came to about £6!!! Amazing!

We decided to head back after that as we've had a long day and we have a lot of ground to cover tomorrow! Back in the room now, gem has out on her sleeping mask and appears to be sleeping so I think I'll do the same.