El Badi Palace

El Badi means the incomparable, and when the Saadian sultan Ahmad al-Mansur built it, starting in 1578 after his victory at the Battle of the Three Kings, it was meant to be exactly that. Financed by the ransoms of Portuguese nobles and by gold from the trans-Saharan trade, it took decades to complete and was decorated with Italian marble traded, it is said, for sugar by weight, with onyx, gold leaf and carved cedar, around an immense central courtyard of pools and sunken gardens. Ambassadors came from Europe and were dazzled. It lasted barely a century. When the Alaouite sultan Moulay Ismail moved his capital to Meknes, he had El Badi stripped of everything of value to build his new palaces, and what remains is a ruin on a heroic scale: a courtyard well over a hundred meters long, with a great rectangular pool at its center and four sunken gardens, now planted with orange trees, around which rise thick earthen walls the color of the city. Along the top of the walls, storks build their enormous nests, and you can climb to a terrace on the ramparts for one of the best views in Marrakech, over the Kasbah and the Medina to the Atlas Mountains. Around the courtyard, the foundations of pavilions, stables and underground passages can be explored. The palace's great treasure today is not original to it: the minbar of the Koutoubia Mosque, a carved and inlaid wooden pulpit made in Cordoba in the twelfth century, is displayed in a pavilion here and is one of the masterpieces of Islamic woodwork. El Badi is part of the post-earthquake restoration program, with work reported at around forty percent in 2025 and 2026, so some sections may be closed, and the ticket for foreigners is in line with the other state monuments.

How to visit: the entrance is on the Place des Ferblantiers side, between the Bahia Palace and the Saadian Tombs in the Kasbah, about fifteen minutes on foot from Jemaa el-Fna. It opens daily from morning until late afternoon. The courtyard is fully exposed to the sun, with little shade beyond the orange trees, so in summer go at opening, and bring water and a hat at any time of year. Allow an hour, more if you linger on the ramparts. There may be an extra fee for the minbar pavilion; have small notes and coins ready. Because restoration continues, the ramparts terrace, the underground passages or the minbar pavilion can be closed at times; ask at the entrance before paying if one of them matters to you.

What to look for: stand at one end of the central pool to grasp the scale of what was built, then walk the sunken gardens, which sit several meters below the walkways, an Andalusian idea that put the treetops at eye level. The surviving fragments of zellige and carved plaster around the pavilions hint at the lost decoration. The minbar, made in Cordoba for the Almoravids and moved to the Koutoubia, has panels of marquetry and carving of almost impossible fineness. From the ramparts, look for the storks and, on clear days in winter and spring, the snow on the High Atlas.

Why go: after the jewel-box interiors of the Bahia and the Saadian Tombs, El Badi gives you the opposite experience, space and sky and the sense of a vanished empire. It is a favorite with photographers and with children, who can run around the courtyards, and it is rarely as crowded as the other monuments. In past years it has also hosted cultural events and festivals in its courtyard, which makes for an extraordinary setting.