Property Select

Marrakech is unlikely to be the first destination that pops into your head when you are considering possible locations for your dream holiday property. It sounds far too exotic for sensible buyers: too full of hippies, tummy bugs and sand. But the reality is rather different.

These days, you are more likely to meet an interior designer than a hippy, and it would be perfectly possible to spend an entire holiday eating at McDonald’s and drinking manhattans, launch of the exclusive oceanfront if you so desired. Hard to escape the sand, though. Nonetheless, Marrakech is a far cry from Benidorm. Despite the longstanding French influence (Morocco was a French colony until 1956), a recent surge of European tourists and an epidemic of construction work around the old town, it remains an excitingly un-European city. The main square at sunset is heaving with locals and tourists meandering among snake charmers, Berber musicians and unfathomable street shows, or sitting at the open air cafe stalls eating shish kebabs and sheep’s heads. Head into the old souks and you could emerge with a hookah, a carpet or a live chicken; after some pretty impressive haggling, I scored three pairs of pointy Moroccan leather slippers and a gram of saffron.