“The Gardener’s House” in Tangier, Morocco

Traditionally costumed water sellers are seen throughout Morocco. For a dirham or two water is poured from camel leather bags into brass or tin cups. Few tourists can resist photographing the colorfully clad men decked out in elaborate tasseled hats. You can hear the musical clinking of the brass and bells they wear.

Today water sellers make more money from vacationers who pay to photograph them than from peddling water.

In Marrakesh water sellers in Jemma el Fna are licensed and wander amongst the crowds, food stalls, snake charmers, story tellers, dancers, acrobats and fortune tellers. They are adept at getting the most from tourists. Indeed if one approaches you in the square don’t be surprised if two others appear to pose in a trio. All three will expect a tip.


The home of world-renowned garden designer Madison Cox is a simple Moorish refuge in a city that has captivated like-minded wanderers for centuries: beloved books and plants share his view of the deep blue Strait of Gibraltar.  Here is an excerpt of the recent New York Times article:

“Sunny, stormy and fog-drenched Tangier has long been a magnet for diplomats, painters, traders, writers, dreamers, stoners, smugglers and spies. In the last century, the city has been full- and part-time home to an eccentric assortment of creative residents and travelers including Eugène Delacroix, Henri Matisse, Edith Wharton, Tennessee Williams, Paul Bowles, Barbara Hutton, Cecil Beaton, William S. Burroughs, Patricia Highsmith and Yves Saint Laurent. All of them basked in the warm — sometimes dangerous and decadent — romantic allure of Morocco’s most northern outpost. The city’s complicated, contentious history matches its diverse vistas and uneven topography: it has been an ancient Berber settlement, a Roman and Phoenician outpost, and a trophy port for a half-dozen occupying foreign powers before it gained independence in 1956.

Tangier has almost as many astounding views as it has residents. There isn’t a spot in this city that doesn’t look across, up to, down on, or over a huge expanse of the Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic Ocean, the Rock of Gibraltar, the southern coast of Spain, lush nature preserves and gardens, ancient markets and handsome French, Spanish and Italian Colonial-era buildings. Tangier’s long, raw, jig-jag coastline is rimmed with epic cliffs and crashing surf; a network of steep rolling hills are cloaked in whitewashed houses and shops; and the newly reconfigured and renovated marina is abuzz with hundreds of fishing skiffs, ferries and cruise ships chugging in and out. This is a place of kinetic, powerful natural and artificial beauty.”


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