There’s nowhere in Morocco like the Jemaa el Fna – no place that so effortlessly involves you and keeps you coming back for more. By day, most of the square is just a big open space, in which a handful of snake charmers bewitch their cobras with flutes, medicine men (especially in the northeast of the square) display cures and nostrums, and tooth-pullers, wielding fearsome pliers, offer to pluck the pain from out of the heads of toothache sufferers, trays of extracted molars attesting to their skill. It isn’t until late afternoon that the square really gets going. At dusk, as in France and Spain, people come out for an early evening promenade (especially in Rue Bab Agnaou), and the square gradually fills until it becomes a whole carnival of storytellers, acrobats, musicians and entertainers. Come on down and you’ll soon be immersed in the ritual: wandering round, squatting amid the circles of onlookers, giving a dirham or two as your contribution. If you want a respite, you can move over to the rooftop terraces, such as the Café du Grand Balcon, for a vista over the square, its storytellers and musicians, and the crowds who come to see them.
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