Overview
Many visitor itineraries focus on the medina, but the Ville Nouvelle offers a different street plan, transport pattern and mix of shops, galleries and restaurants. Gueliz can be compared with a medina base rather than treated as an afterthought.
Gueliz has wider streets, contemporary restaurants, some licensed alcohol service, art galleries, design shops and cafés. It also contains Jardin Majorelle and the Musée Yves Saint Laurent; verify current tickets, hours and access through their official channels.
Gueliz is also the practical side of Marrakech: the train station, most of the city's banks and pharmacies, the central market, and the supermarkets are all here. Many visitors who stay in the medina's riads pass through Gueliz on arrival or departure without spending any real time in it. That is worth correcting.
History
Gueliz takes its name from the Jbel Gueliz, a rocky limestone outcrop that rises to the west of the city and was used as a military observation point. When the French Protectorate was established in Morocco in 1912, the colonial administration faced a choice that urban planners had faced in other colonial contexts: demolish or supplement the existing city. In Marrakech, as in Fes and Rabat, the French Resident-General Hubert Lyautey made the decision to build a new European city alongside the medina rather than within it.
The man Lyautey charged with designing it was Henri Prost, a Beaux-Arts-trained urban planner who went on to influence urban planning doctrine internationally. Prost's Marrakech plan — drawn up from 1912 onward — established the principles: a broad central boulevard (today's Avenue Mohammed V) running southwest to northeast, a grid of secondary streets, planting to provide shade, and a deliberate buffer zone between the Ville Nouvelle and the medina walls. The result was a city of wide, tree-lined avenues, low-rise buildings with arcaded ground floors, and an ordered calm that was the deliberate counterpoint to the medina's deliberate complexity.
The buildings that filled Prost's grid through the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s reflect the architecture of the period: Mauresque (a colonial fusion of French modernism and Moroccan ornamental tradition), art deco with North African inflections, and stripped classical. Much of this fabric survives, giving Gueliz a genuine architectural character that rewards walking slowly with your eyes up.
After Moroccan independence in 1956, Gueliz grew rapidly as a commercial and residential district for the Marrakchi middle class. Today it is the commercial spine of a city of over a million people, its population far exceeding the medina's, its cafés and restaurants the meeting places of contemporary urban Morocco.
Jardin Majorelle
The most-visited site in Marrakech — more visited than Jemaa el-Fna by some counts — Jardin Majorelle is at once a botanical garden, a design object, a pilgrimage site, and an almost surreal escape from the city outside its walls. It repays a visit even if you have seen it in a hundred photographs.
Jacques Majorelle and the garden's creation
The garden was created by Jacques Majorelle (1886–1962), a French orientalist painter who came to Marrakech in 1919 for his health and stayed for the rest of his life. From 1923 he began transforming the land around his studio villa into a botanical garden, planting it with species from five continents — bamboo, cacti, bougainvillea, palm palms, lotus — and designing the paths, pools, and pergolas himself over four decades of obsessive work.
The colour that defines the garden — an intense, luminous cobalt blue — was Majorelle's own invention, developed specifically for the studio and outbuildings and now known internationally as Majorelle Blue. Against the ochre of Marrakech and the green of the planting, it is one of those colour combinations that should clash and instead achieves something close to perfection. The garden opened to the public in 1947; Majorelle himself guided visitors.
Yves Saint Laurent and the rescue
Majorelle died in 1962 following a car accident. The garden fell into decline and by 1980 was threatened with redevelopment into a tourist complex. In that year, fashion designers Yves Saint Laurent and his partner Pierre Bergé bought the property and began a meticulous restoration. They maintained and expanded the botanical collection, restored the electric blue, and made Marrakech a central part of their lives — Saint Laurent spent several months there each year for the rest of his life.
When Yves Saint Laurent died in 2008, his ashes were scattered in the garden at a rose planted in his memory in the northwest corner — a spot still marked by a Roman column. Pierre Bergé died in 2017, the same year the Musée Yves Saint Laurent opened adjacent to the garden. Both men's connection to Marrakech was profound and long-lasting; the garden's continued excellence is their legacy as much as Majorelle's.
Visiting the garden
The garden and Musée Pierre Bergé des Arts Berbères display plants, jewellery, textiles, ceramics and clothing. Check the official site for the current ticket scope, access, hours and suggested visit information.
The garden and Musée Pierre Bergé des Arts Berbères use timed tickets, while the adjacent Musée Yves Saint Laurent has separate admission. Check each official website for the current ticket format, price, hours and availability before travelling.
Musée Yves Saint Laurent (MYSL)
Adjacent to Jardin Majorelle, the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Marrakech opened in October 2017 — the same week as a sister museum in Paris. It was designed by French architecture studio KO (Karl Fournier and Olivier marty) in a building whose brick facade is laid in a pattern derived from Moroccan textiles, the brickwork itself referencing the weave of fabric. The effect, particularly in raking light, is extraordinary.
The permanent collection spans YSL's 40-year career: haute couture dresses from key collections, sketches, accessories, and a series of rooms tracing his evolution from his 1962 debut at the House of Dior through his final collection in 2002. The Marrakech museum focuses specifically on YSL's relationship with Morocco and with African and Moroccan design influence — the caftan collections, the North African palette of his later work, the way Marrakech's colours and textures moved through his design vocabulary. Temporary exhibitions rotate throughout the year.
Admission, combination tickets and weekly closing days can change. Check the museum's official website for the current price, hours and ticket options before visiting.
Menara Gardens
Two kilometres southwest of Gueliz, the Menara Gardens are a vast olive grove — around 100 hectares — established by the Almohad dynasty in the 12th century to supply the royal kitchens and palaces. They remain largely intact and largely unchanged: a huge, flat expanse of ancient olive trees shading a silence rarely found this close to the city.
The centrepiece is a large rectangular reflecting pool fed by an underground channel from the Atlas Mountains, and a green-roofed pavilion (the menzeh) built in the 19th century as a royal retreat. The reflection of the pavilion in the pool, with the snow-capped Atlas behind it on clear winter and spring days, is one of the classic images of Marrakech — an image that appears on a thousand postcards and is still, in person, genuinely arresting.
The gardens are quiet on weekday mornings; busy with Marrakchi families on weekend afternoons. Entry is free; the pavilion interior costs a few dirhams to enter and is worth it for the view of the pool from the upper floor. A petit taxi from Gueliz takes about ten minutes.
The streets & what's on them
Avenue Mohammed V
The main boulevard of Gueliz — a wide, tree-lined avenue running the length of the Ville Nouvelle from the medina walls (at the Koutoubia end) to the train station. The arcaded ground floors of the buildings along it contain banks, pharmacies, cafés, and the kind of general commercial mix that Moroccan city centres tend toward. It is the navigational spine of Gueliz and the address of many of the practical facilities visitors need. Walking it from medina to station takes about 25 minutes.
Rue de la Liberté
Rue de la Liberté and nearby blocks contain boutiques, galleries and independent cafés. Verify current opening, product origin and return terms with each business.
Place du 16 Novembre
The main junction of Gueliz — a large roundabout where Avenue Mohammed V, Rue de la Liberté, and the Rue Yves Saint Laurent (the street leading to Jardin Majorelle) intersect. The square has a formal garden at its centre and is surrounded by café terraces that are the social heart of Gueliz. In the evening, it fills with a cross-section of urban Moroccan life that looks nothing like the tourist medina a kilometre away.
Marché Central
Marrakech's central market — a covered indoor market one block off Avenue Mohammed V — sells fresh produce, meat, fish, olives, preserved lemons, argan oil, spices, and household goods to the Gueliz neighbourhood. It is a working city market, not a tourist attraction, and substantially cheaper than anything in the medina souk. The fishmongers are particularly good; the olive and pickle sellers along the perimeter are worth exploring for gifts. Open daily from early morning; busiest before noon.
Eating & drinking
Gueliz is where Marrakech's contemporary dining scene lives. The medina has its great traditional restaurants and its riad kitchens; Gueliz has the modern Moroccan cuisine movement — chefs reinterpreting traditional dishes with contemporary technique and presentation — alongside international options and, crucially, licensed restaurants that serve wine and cocktails. If you want to eat and drink alcohol in Marrakech, you will eat in Gueliz or Hivernage.
Contemporary Moroccan restaurants
Contemporary Moroccan restaurants cluster around Rue de la Liberté, Avenue Mohammed V and the streets north of Jardin Majorelle. Menus may draw on lamb, preserved lemon, argan oil, ras el hanout and pastilla techniques. Compare current menus, licence information and total prices directly with each venue.
Pavement cafés
Avenue Mohammed V and Place du 16 Novembre have pavement cafés serving coffee, msemen and pastries. Compare current menus, shade, traffic and accessibility when choosing where to stop.
Juice bars and pâtisseries
Gueliz pâtisseries sell Moroccan pastries and French-influenced cakes, while juice and snack shops cluster on commercial streets. Compare current ingredients, allergens, hygiene and prices rather than assuming value from the district.
Shopping & galleries
Gueliz's shopping is a different register from the medina souk — fixed prices, contemporary Moroccan design, and a more curated selection than the volume-driven souk stalls.
Contemporary Moroccan design boutiques
Rue de la Liberté and blocks north of Jardin Majorelle include contemporary Moroccan design shops selling ceramics, footwear, cosmetics and textiles. Verify materials, origin, fixed-price policy and returns with each shop; location does not establish quality.
Art galleries
Gueliz has a small but real contemporary art scene. Several galleries on and around Rue de la Liberté and Avenue Mohammed V show Moroccan and international contemporary artists — painting, photography, installation. Some are associated with the arts centre at Dar Cherifa in the medina; most operate independently. Opening hours are irregular; a walk along Rue de la Liberté will reveal which galleries are currently open and showing.
The YSL Museum and Majorelle boutiques
Both Jardin Majorelle and the YSL Museum have well-stocked boutiques. The Majorelle shop sells garden-branded gifts, Moroccan textiles and ceramics curated in the Majorelle Blue palette, and Berber-inspired jewellery — among the better-curated gift shops in Marrakech. The YSL museum boutique carries fashion publications, prints, and design objects associated with Saint Laurent's aesthetic and his Moroccan period.
Getting there from the medina
Gueliz begins roughly where the medina walls end, at the Koutoubia Mosque end of Avenue Mohammed V. The distance from Jemaa el-Fna to the central junction of Gueliz (Place du 16 Novembre) is approximately 2 km — a 20-minute walk along Avenue Mohammed V, which is wide, tree-lined, and pleasant. This is a walk worth doing at least once: it takes you past the Koutoubia gardens, through the transition from the ochre medina walls to the white and cream plaster of the Ville Nouvelle, and gives a sense of the city's scale.
For a petit taxi between the medina, Jardin Majorelle and the train station, use a licensed vehicle and ask the driver to use the meter where applicable. Traffic and access change the journey time; confirm the destination before departure.
The Gare de Marrakech (the train station) is at the far end of Avenue Mohammed V from the medina, with a large modern passenger hall. Conventional ONCF trains depart regularly for Casablanca; passengers travelling onward by Al Boraq connect at Casa Voyageurs. The station has a café and taxi ranks outside.
Practical tips
- Jardin Majorelle — book online: The garden operates timed entry and sells out on busy days (almost any day in spring and autumn). Book on the official website at least a day in advance. Showing up without a ticket almost always means queueing and sometimes means turning back.
- Combined Majorelle + YSL visit: The two sites are adjacent and take 2–3 hours combined. Buy a combined ticket at the box office or online. The YSL Museum is closed on Mondays.
- Gueliz in the heat: Unlike the medina's covered lanes, Gueliz has open streets. In July and August (40°C+), the pavement cafés with shade are the only comfortable outdoor option between noon and 4pm. Plan major walking for morning or evening.
- ATMs and cash: Gueliz has the highest concentration of bank branches and ATMs in Marrakech. If you need to draw cash for the medina, do it in Gueliz where there are more options and fewer queues.
- Pharmacies: Gueliz has multiple pharmacies on Avenue Mohammed V and its side streets. If you need medication, this is where to come — the medina has pharmacies but they are fewer and harder to find.
- Menara Gardens taxi: In hot weather or with limited mobility, compare walking with a licensed petit taxi. Confirm meter use and plan the return before leaving central Gueliz.
- Evening in Gueliz: The restaurant district around Rue de la Liberté and the streets north of Jardin Majorelle comes alive between 7pm and 10pm. Reservations are advisable at the better restaurants on weekends and throughout spring and autumn.