Majorelle Garden

Majorelle Garden is a one-hectare botanical garden in Marrakech's Ville Nouvelle district, created by French painter Jacques Majorelle over four decades starting in the 1920s. Majorelle became obsessed with the garden, eventually developing the vivid cobalt blue — now known worldwide as Bleu Majorelle — that covers the studio and pottery throughout the grounds. After his death, the garden fell into disrepair until 1980, when fashion designers Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé bought it, rescued it from planned hotel development, and restored it to its former glory. When Saint Laurent died in 2008, his ashes were scattered here. It is now one of the most visited sites in all of Morocco.

The experience is a genuine sensory shift from the chaos of the medina. You walk through groves of bamboo, cacti, and palms, past lily-covered pools and fountains, with that striking blue studio anchoring the whole composition. The Berber Museum, housed inside the restored studio building, holds one of the finest collections of Amazigh jewelry, textiles, and art in the country — easily worth an hour on its own. Adjacent to the garden, the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Marrakech opened in 2017 and displays rotating exhibitions of the designer's work in a purpose-built building that has won architectural awards in its own right.

The garden gets genuinely crowded, especially between 10am and 2pm when tour groups arrive in force. Go right at opening — 8:30am — and you'll have stretches of it nearly to yourself, which is a completely different experience. The entrance fee covers the garden itself; the Berber Museum is included, but the YSL Museum next door requires a separate ticket. Budget at least two hours if you want to see everything properly, and don't skip the boutique near the exit, which sells high-quality prints and books on both Majorelle and Saint Laurent.