Snake charmers, magic potions, hidden palaces: Marrakech brings the most outlandish travellers’ tales to life.

Visitors today often disappear down a maze of winding derbs (alleys) and emerge days later, relaxed and refreshed from their stays in spectacular riads (courtyard guesthouses) where their every need is anticipated by butlers, in-house chefs, and massage therapists.

Adventure awaits at the doorstep in the medina (old city), with its fondouks (artisans’ workshops), seven zaouias (saints’ shrines) and qissaria (pedestrian street) stalls ladling up steaming bowls of snails and sheep’s head soup.

The focal point of Marrakech is its celebrated square, the Jemaa el Fna, Morocco’s UNESCO-recognised platform for halqa (street theatre). Towering over the scene is the stately Koutoubia minaret, a template for Hispano-Mauresque architecture and a reminder of the importance of Islam to the lives of the city’s residents.

Making a fashionable late arrival in Marrakech were foreign hedonists and idealists. Yves Saint Laurent, the Beatles, Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones rubbed shoulders with William S Burroughs and other American Beat generation writers. Hippies and visitors following spiritual quests, creative inspiration, and the suspiciously fragrant clouds of smoke that once filled the city’s back alleys, joined the fray.

Dynasties, rock stars and their habits come and go, but inspiration remains in Marrakech. In the souks and Ensemble Artisanal, artisans are already fashioning next year’s interior design must-haves. Contemporary galleries have taken root in Guéliz, Marrakech’s Festival of Popular Arts in July (see Special Events) draws dancers and musicians from Morocco and beyond, and the red carpet at the Marrakech International Film Festival (see Special Events) greets the glitterati from Hollywood to Bollywood each December.