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| Pr Btissam BenSalah B |
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| Marrakesh : Place Jemaa El-Fna |
| Marrakesh : Place Jemaa El-Fna |
| From the eastern side of the Koutoubia a wide road ,carrying taxis,lorries,buses and horse-drawn calèches leads to place Jemaa El-Fna the center of interest in the Old Medina if not its geographic center ,and the easiest way in to the warren of alleys.The name means meeting-place of sinners and recallsthe hundreds of convicted or suspected criminals who were executed here in byegone centuries,their severed heads serving as a warning to others . Nowadays the severed heads serving as a warning to others.Nowadays the square is altogether a livelier place and on an evening in Ramadan probably the liveliest in all Morocco. In the morning it is a vast market for virtually anything portable except livestock:You can buy Fruit and Veg,Cure -all Medicines ,Tourist Souvenirs ,Herbs ,Trinkets . You can engage a seribe to write for you in Arabic or Frensh and you can even have your teeth pulled out. In the afternoon the Jemaa-meeting-place has its water-sellers,snake-charmers musicians, story-tellers and accrobat the like of whom have been coming but Nowadays the major part of their income is from posing for tourist photographs.Regrettably there's another type of entrepreneur who lives off the tourists: the pickpocket. The square has no architectural interest but is a handy place for cheap hotels at the center of a club Mediterranée ./. |
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