Marrakech Layover Near Jardin Majorelle
Part of the full Marrakech Layover: Medina Palaces From RAK
Marrakech’s Jardin Majorelle, the cobalt-blue villa and cactus garden the painter Jacques Majorelle began in 1923, sells entry online for timed slots, and the Musée Yves Saint Laurent stands next door on the same street in the Gueliz new town.
Jardin Majorelle’s bamboo paths and cobalt-blue walls
The Jardin Majorelle occupies a walled plot on Rue Yves Saint Laurent, north-west of the medina in Gueliz. The French painter Jacques Majorelle bought the land in 1923 and spent almost forty years planting it: stands of bamboo tall enough to shade the paths, palms, and a cactus collection that fills whole beds. He painted the walls, the pools and the pots a strong cobalt he went on to patent as bleu Majorelle, with yellow and terracotta jars set against it. Money ran short, so he opened it to paying visitors in 1947, and Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé bought and restored it in the 1980s. Saint Laurent’s ashes were scattered here after his death in 2008.
There is no ticket desk at the gate. Entry is sold online for a specific time slot, 170 dirhams for a foreign adult, and you have 29 minutes from the time on the QR code to get through the door before it expires. The garden opens at 8:00 and takes its last visitors at 18:00, and with more than 700,000 visitors a year the paths are narrow enough that the early slots are the calm ones. If you would rather hold a slot before you land, garden entry tickets can be booked ahead. Suitcases and large bags are not allowed into the garden, and the cloakroom by the entrance is meant for backpacks rather than luggage.
The Berber arts museum inside Majorelle’s blue villa
The villa at the centre of the garden is the building on every postcard: a Cubist block by the architect Paul Sinoir, finished in 1931 as Majorelle’s house and studio, painted in the same blue with yellow window frames. Since 2011 it has held the Musée Pierre Bergé des Arts Berbères, more than 600 objects gathered by Bergé and Saint Laurent from the Rif mountains down to the Sahara. The rooms run through the history and geography of Morocco’s Amazigh, or Berber, peoples, then costume, tools and weapons, and jewellery. It opens from 8:30 to 18:00 and needs its own ticket, or a combined one with the garden.
The Musée Yves Saint Laurent’s brick facade, laid like woven cloth
The Musée Yves Saint Laurent faces the street a few doors along Rue Yves Saint Laurent from the garden gate, and its outside is the first thing worth stopping for. The French practice Studio KO designed it, and it opened on 19 October 2017: a low building in terracotta brick, the bricks laid in a raised lattice meant to read like the weft and warp of fabric.
The foundation behind it holds about 5,000 of Saint Laurent’s garments and 15,000 haute couture accessories, and the permanent hall shows a rotating selection of them alongside temporary exhibitions. It opens 10:00 to 18:00 with last entry at 17:30, and closes on Wednesdays. A combined ticket for the garden and both museums is cheaper than three separate ones, if you plan to see everything on the street. For the medina’s palaces and souks instead, the full Marrakech medina walk starts two kilometres south-east at Jemaa el-Fnaa.
A petit taxi is the direct way back to Menara Airport from Gueliz
Petits taxis pass along the streets around Rue Yves Saint Laurent, and the run south to Marrakesh Menara Airport (RAK) takes about 15 to 25 minutes depending on traffic; agree the fare or ask for the meter before you set off. Bus 19, the airport line run by ALSA, is the cheaper option at 30 dirhams in cash, roughly every half hour between about 06:00 and 21:00, but it calls at Marrakech’s railway station, a little under two kilometres south-west, rather than at the garden. Whichever you take, the ride is the small part: plan on reaching the terminal roughly three hours ahead of an international departure, since the door scan, check-in, security and passport control all come in sequence.
An afternoon on one street, three ticketed doors and a garden that turns suitcases away at the gate is the easiest part of Marrakech to do with nothing to carry.
Frequently asked questions
What should I do during a layover near Jardin Majorelle in Marrakech?
Walk the Jardin Majorelle, the cactus, palm and bamboo garden Jacques Majorelle began in 1923 around his cobalt-blue villa, then see the Berber arts museum inside that villa and the Musée Yves Saint Laurent next door on the same street. About three hours covers all three with the taxi each way. The garden has to be booked online for a timed slot, and the fashion museum is the one to drop if you are short on time or it is a Wednesday.
Can I buy Jardin Majorelle tickets at the gate?
No. Entry is sold online only, for a specific time slot, and the ticket arrives as a QR code. You can turn up to 29 minutes after the time printed on it; after that it is void and not refunded. Foreign adults pay 170 dirhams for the garden, and the Berber museum and the Musée Yves Saint Laurent can be added on a combined ticket, which works out cheaper than buying them separately. The garden opens at 8:00 and takes its last visitors at 18:00.
What day is the Musée Yves Saint Laurent closed?
Wednesday. The rest of the week it opens from 10:00 to 18:00, with last entry at 17:30, so on a Wednesday the garden and the Berber museum in the villa are the whole visit. The Jardin Majorelle itself opens every day.
Is Yves Saint Laurent buried in the Jardin Majorelle?
His ashes are there. Saint Laurent died in 2008 and his ashes were scattered in the garden's rose garden, where a memorial made from a Roman column brought from Tangier now stands. Since 2010 the garden has belonged to the Fondation Pierre Bergé - Yves Saint Laurent, a French not-for-profit, which also runs the Berber museum and the fashion museum next door. For the palaces and souks of the old city instead, the Marrakech medina walk starts at Jemaa el-Fnaa, about two kilometres south-east.