The Koutoubia Mosque

The Koutoubia is the largest mosque in Marrakech and the model for two other Almohad minarets, the Giralda in Seville and the unfinished tower in Rabat. It was built in the twelfth century, twice over: the foundations of the first attempt are still visible in the ground beside the standing building, marked out where the walls once stood. The minaret is a plain block of red sandstone over seventy metres high, decorated with a different carved band on each face and topped with copper spheres, and by long custom nothing in the old city is built taller. Non-Muslims cannot go inside, so the visit is the walk around it: the ruined first mosque, the rose gardens on the south side and the tower at different hours of the day.

What you actually see

• The minaret - red sandstone, a different carved pattern on each of the four faces.
• The first mosque - foundation walls of the earlier building, laid bare beside it.
• The gardens - rose beds and olive trees on the southern side, with benches.
• The evening call - the tower floodlit, heard across the square and the gardens.

When to go

Late afternoon and the hour after sunset are the best light, when the sandstone goes from pink to orange and the tower is lit. Midday in summer is brutally hot with almost no shade on the approach. There is no ticket and no queue, so it fits into any hour of a Marrakech day.

Honest expectations

You cannot go inside, which surprises people who have travelled for it, and the site is essentially one tower plus a garden - twenty minutes unless you sit. The surrounding roads are busy with traffic, horse carriages and men offering tours you did not ask for. The ruined first mosque is fenced and hard to read without a guide or a plan.

Nearby

Jemaa el-Fnaa and the medina souks are five minutes on foot; the Menara gardens lie west.