Description: This is both a stunningly beautiful building and also home to very impressive Museum of Moroccan Arts. Through a solid wooden and past the trick office (look opposite to the "notice-board" which will tell you about any temporary exhibits or particular things of interest at that time), you follow a well marked route by signposted cabinets of Berber jewellery and daggers, swords and other weapons, both intricate and deadly in design. The rooms themselves are glorious as well, doors and window-cases in painted cedar wood though sadly there's no photography allowed inside (and you'll find yourself shadowed by an apparently well-meaning chap, who isn't in fact a guide but more a guard). Eventually you'll go out into a lovely courtyard with fountains and orange groves and flowers (where you can take photos to your heart’s content).
In four chambers set off from the main courtyard, there are also interesting curios, like a selection of C18 barber’s implements and hamman tools, all beautifully preserved. Look out as well for the cabinets of costumes (including some wild hats) and the painted furniture.
Alongside the door panels, window frames and painted ceilings, there are also wedding chairs (apparently used for carrying the bride, veiled and hidden, to her new home) and painted, decorated prayer steps and lastly, don’t miss the fairground swings, shaped like a wooden Ferris wheel, and used for children until the early 1960s (they’re dismantled so you have to use your imagination a little).
Given that you can’t take photos, it’s a shame that there are no postcards on sale -- there are pictures of a guidebook (not a cheap option at 60dhm and anyway none seemed to be available for sale from the ticket-seller who looked blank and shrugged at the suggestion).
Open 9am-12.15pm and 3.15-5.30pm every day. Entrance fee 10dh.
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