Marrakech was founded around 1070 by the Almoravids as a desert camp and became the capital of four dynasties. This route follows that chronology: the one surviving Almoravid building, the Almohad minaret, the Saadian tombs, the Alaouite ruins, and the French Ville Nouvelle.
The only intact Almoravid building left in Morocco, built c. 1117 under Ali ibn Yusuf and buried under rubble until 1948. The ablutions dome shows the first true Moroccan muqarnas, pine-cone and palm motifs. Sunken 4m below modern street level.
Morocco's largest Quranic college, rebuilt 1564–65 by Saadian sultan Abdallah al-Ghalib on a 14th-century Merinid foundation. Housed 900 students in 130 cells. Reopened 2022 after four years of restoration of its zellij, cedar and stucco.
Built twice: the first mosque of 1147 was demolished because its qibla was misaligned, and its foundations are still visible in the fenced excavation north of the current 1158 building. The 77m minaret became the model for Seville's Giralda.
The 1185 ceremonial gate to the royal kasbah, carved from Gueliz bluestone with concentric floral arches and a Kufic inscription band. Unlike the pisé walls it sits in, it was built in dressed stone to announce the Almohad caliph's quarter.
Sealed by Alaouite sultan Moulay Ismail around 1697 and rediscovered by French aerial survey in 1917. Sixty-six Saadian royals lie here, including Ahmad al-Mansur, whose Chamber of the Twelve Columns uses Carrara marble traded for Sudanese sugar.
Al-Mansur's 'Incomparable' palace of 1578, funded by ransom from the Battle of the Three Kings and stripped bare over twelve years by Moulay Ismail to build Meknes. The sunken orange groves and 90m pool survive; storks now nest on the pisé walls.
Palace of Si Said, brother of Bahia's Ba Ahmed, built in the 1890s and museum since 1932. Its Hispano-Moorish cedar cupola room is the finest in the city; collections cover High Atlas and Sahrawi weaving from the 18th century onward.
Morocco's oldest Jewish quarter, created in 1558 when the Saadians moved the community beside the kasbah for royal protection. Slat al-Azama synagogue was founded by Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 and still holds services in its blue courtyard.
The basin was dug by the Almohads around 1130 to irrigate olive groves via khettara underground channels from the Atlas. The green-tiled pavilion above it was added by Alaouite sultan Abd al-Rahman in 1869 as a summer retreat.
A 1560s Saadian public fountain with three troughs — two for animals, one for people — beside its mosque and hammam, the classic five-part urban complex. The adjoining douiria (guest apartment) preserves painted-cedar ceilings from the same period.
The Ville Nouvelle laid out from 1913 by Henri Prost under Resident-General Lyautey, deliberately built outside the walls to leave the Medina intact. The 1926 church and the arcaded villas along Avenue Mohammed V show Mauresque-Deco hybrid design.
Painter Jacques Majorelle began the garden in 1923 and patented his cobalt 'bleu Majorelle'; Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé bought it in 1980 to save it from developers. His studio now holds 600 Amazigh artefacts from the Rif to the Sahara.