6 Days in Marrakech: First-Timer Itinerary

Six days is where Marrakech stops feeling like a checklist and starts feeling like a place you actually know: two sightseeing days, a gardens-and-hammam day, a Kasbah day, and a genuinely slow gallery day before you fly. Shorter trip? Try 4 or 5 days . Have a full week? See the 7-day version .

Book these before you go

Day Focus
Day 1 Medina arrival, Jemaa el-Fnaa by day and night, souks
Day 2 Bahia Palace, Ben Youssef Medersa, Saadian Tombs, Mellah
Day 3 Jardin Majorelle, Koutoubia exterior, Gueliz
Day 4 Le Jardin Secret, Menara Gardens, hammam, real shopping
Day 5 Kasbah, El Badi Palace, ramparts walk, sunset rooftop
Day 6 Museum morning, Gueliz galleries, cooking class

Day 1: Medina Arrival and Jemaa el-Fnaa

  • Land, agree the petit taxi fare before getting in, 150 MAD is a fair ceiling. Spend the afternoon getting lost on purpose in the souks , then hit Jemaa el-Fnaa as the crowds build.
  • Grab a fresh orange juice and watch the square shift gears from market to spectacle.
  • Dinner at a riad restaurant serving tagines and couscous, real couscous if it’s a Friday.

Day 2: Bahia Palace and the Mellah

  • Bahia Palace for the tilework, roughly 100 MAD, then Ben Youssef Medersa, 50 MAD daily 9am-7pm.
  • Saadian Tombs, 100 MAD, 9am-5pm, before the afternoon queue builds.
  • Walk the Mellah, the old Jewish quarter, narrow streets and a historic synagogue with a fraction of the crowds elsewhere.
  • Dinner somewhere doing traditional cuisine with a modern edge.

Day 3: Jardin Majorelle and Gueliz

  • Book the earliest slot at Jardin Majorelle, 230 MAD garden and Berber Museum, 330 MAD combined with the YSL Museum.
  • Koutoubia Mosque for the exterior only, non-Muslims can’t enter anywhere in Morocco.
  • Evening in Gueliz, boutiques and cafes that feel like a different city from the medina.

Day 4: Secret Gardens, Menara and a Hammam

  • Start at Le Jardin Secret, 100 MAD (80 MAD under-25), a genuinely restorative morning behind unmarked walls.
  • Menara Gardens after, free entry, small fee for the pavilion interior.
  • Book a hammam for the afternoon, Hammam de la Rose or Hammam Al-Andalus both do the steam-scrub-massage combination well.
  • A cooking class in the late afternoon, learn to actually build a tagine from scratch, spices layered properly, not dumped in at once.

Day 5: The Kasbah and Sunset Rooftops

  • Kasbah quarter in the morning, quieter streets and smaller family-run riads than the touristy core.
  • El Badi Palace, 16th-century ruins with genuine scale, then a walk along the old city ramparts and gates.
  • Rooftop cafe for sunset, mains run 100-250 MAD, arrive early for a table.
  • Switching to a different riad for the last two nights adds a nice change of scenery mid-trip if you’re up for it.

Day 6: Museums and Gueliz Galleries

  • Visit a museum showcasing Moroccan art and history in the morning, then wander into contemporary gallery spaces if that’s your thing.
  • Afternoon in Gueliz, coffee and pastries somewhere with real seating, your feet will thank you after five days of cobblestone.
  • Farewell-adjacent dinner at a beautifully decorated spot serving inventive Moroccan cuisine.

Give yourself two extra hours before your flight, medina traffic near the airport road gets unpredictable at exactly the wrong time.