Historical Jemaa el-Fna

Place Jemaa el-Fna

Public square with traders, merchants and street artists frequented by tourists and locals.

Historical

Jamaâ El Fna is a destination for all the magic, and tells its storytellers, dancers, water sellers and snake charmers, the history of Morocco yesterday and today while subjugating its visitors with its charm which begins in the morning and does not find its height until evening. The medieval Moroccan chronicles written between the 11th and the 14th century refer to a Rahba al-Ksar, an esplanade of the palace located in the middle of the olive tree, religious monument, the minaret of Koutoubia close to the place. In the region of Koutoubia. Public punishment had been publicly imposed since the 12th century. The palace in question and certainly the Ksar al-Hajar built at the end of the eleventh century by the Almoravids and whose ruins remain at the foot of the Koutoubia

There is nowhere in Morocco like Jemaa el Fna - no place that concerns you so easily and allows you to stay for more. By day, most of the place is just a large open space, where a handful of charming snakes bewitched their cobras with flutes, medical men (especially in the northeast of the square) display cures and panaceous, and tooth-pullers, wielding fearsome claws, offering to tear off the pain of the head of people suffering from toothache, trays of extracts attesting to their molar skills.

It's only in the afternoon that the place really goes. At dusk, as in France and Spain, people wander in the early evening (especially in Bab Agnaou street), and the place fills up little by little to become a carnival of storytellers, acrobats, musicians and artists. Go down and you will soon be immersed in the ritual: wandering, squatting among the circles of spectators, giving a dirham or two as your contribution. If you want to take a break, you can walk on the roof terraces, like the Grand Balcony Café, for a view of the square, its storytellers and musicians, and the crowds who come to see them.

As a foreigner in Jemâa, you may feel a little intruder. Most crowds are Moroccan of course (some foreigners, for example, will include storytellers' tales), but tourists also make a  significant contribution to the atmosphere and cash flow. Sometimes, a storyteller or a musician can get you to participate or contribute generously to the end of the show collection and, entering the show, it is better to go without the usual tourist outlines such as watches, belts of money or too much money;Pickpockets and crooks work (which gives a "present" payment and demanding because it is an old scam to be wary, asking tourists to change counterfeit euro coins is a newer version). 

The crowd around the artists is sometimes used as an opportunity to search foreign women, and by Moroccan men and homosexual male tourists for the cruise.

Tourist attractions include bottle games, fortune tellers sitting under umbrellas with divination card packs and women with pipette bags filled with henna paste, ready to paint their hands, feet or arms. beware of "synthetic black henna", which contains a toxic chemical; That red henna is natural (Henna Coffee guarantees to use only natural henna).

To refresh, the stalls offer orange juice and grapefruit (but pressed in front of you if you do not want to falsify with water and sugar, or even squash), while the neighboring carts collapse .

 particularly delicious in winter when freshly picked from the surrounding countryside. At dusk, the square becomes a huge open-air dining room, filled with stalls lit by gas lanterns, and the air is filled with wonderful smells and plumes of smoke that smokes up at night (see stands of food Jemaa el-Fna).

Situation