A Marrakech day inside the Medina and across to Majorelle

A 16th-century riad turned public garden on the main souk route. Climb the tower to the small rooftop café before the heat builds and order mint tea with a plate of msemmen. The garden below splits into Islamic and exotic — the Islamic side is the older and the finer.

Enter the souks at Rahba Kedima — Spice Square — before the main tourist flow reaches it from Jemaa. Walk north-east through the smaller lanes: slipper makers, tinsmiths, apothecaries selling dried chameleons. Don't buy on the first pass; note what's where and come back after lunch.

A 16th-century royal mausoleum hidden by a rebuilding sultan behind a wall in the 18th century. Rediscovered in 1917 from an aerial photograph. A small complex, ten or fifteen minutes; the marble-and-cedar Hall of Twelve Columns is why you came.

Up the stairs of a riad facing Rahba Kedima, four floors of modernist Moroccan cooking on rooftop terraces with views over the medina. The tasting-lunch menu is the move; the chef will send out whatever came out well that morning. Book ahead.

The Berber-blue-and-yellow garden Yves Saint Laurent restored after it fell into disrepair. A bamboo forest, pools with water lilies, cactuses in every shape. Book a timed ticket online days ahead. The small Berber Museum inside is worth thirty minutes.

The main square transforms at dusk. Walk the perimeter clockwise at six-thirty as the food stalls set up — stalls 14 and 32 are where locals eat, not the numbered ones closer to the centre. Order tanjia (slow-cooked lamb in an urn), harira soup, fresh-pressed orange juice.

A three-storey café back on Rahba Kedima. Climb to the top terrace, order a second mint tea, watch the square below from above. The drummers and storytellers on Jemaa are audible from here too. Stay until the evening call to prayer drifts across the rooftops.