One of the pleasures of the square, Jemaa al Fna, is that there are more locals than tourists and they are a continuation of a long tradition. In the earliest days the square was a place of execution, and its name means Assembly of the Dead. But for many years, certainly well over a hundred, as Edith Wharton refers to it in In Morocco (1917) it has been a gathering place for local people, not only for buying and selling but also for entertainment - storytelling, acrobatics, snake charming, etc. Traditionally it was also a centre for services, so scribes and purveyors of herbal remedies flourished. Tooth pulling is still on offer, and Lyndsay, a Yorkshire woman spending a couple of days in Marrakesh at the end of a biking holiday in the Atlas Mountains, recounts having encountered a toothpuller complete with tray of sample teeth removed from the afflicted.It's a particular pleasure to walk through the square and see a circle of perhaps fifty men and boys surrounding a storyteller who can keep them enthralled with words alone, electronic devices left in pockets. Janet and Joe and I walk down through the medina to the square in the mid-afternoon, past the shoe shiners and the horse-drawn caleches. The men are just setting up the food stalls for the evening and the fruit stalls are flowing in the late sun - figs, dates, nuts and apricots all as beautiful as they are sweet but all, unfortunately, visited by flies.Janet admires the pointed slippers and the caftans. Many of the shops are high in tourist appeal, but there are also sellers who have staked out small bits of pavement and are selling cigarette packs from an open carton or bars of soap.
We stop at our previous restaurant for lamb tagines, seated outside where we can watch the throng in the gathering dark. The young boys toss their little blue lit whirlygigs up against the darkening sky and steam rises above the lights from the food stall. There's a steady low drumbeat and a hum of energy. On the pavement the little lanterns glow red and blue and gold.