I figured the UNESCO heritage site of the Ait Benhaddou Ksar would be large and impressive given it is a major tourist attraction. However, my imagination was a bit greater than reality. I expected the scale of a Rajasthani Palace, but instead found a small and moderately aesthetic fortified village. I did find some fun here, had the most memorable accommodation of my trip and mostly avoided the large tourist bus groups, but you should know up front its more popular because it was a shoot location of media like Game of Thrones.
Ait Benhaddou
Ait Benhaddu is a Ksar (fortress village or castle) built on a hill over the banks of a small river. This unique placement saw it become one of the few meaningful routes across the Atlas Mountains, crossing between Marrakesh and the Dra’a Valley on the edge of the Sahara. The site has been fortified since the 11th century, but the current buildings are from around the 17th century constructed of rammed earthen walls.
The orange desert contrast against a green river oasis with snowy High Atlas Mountains in the background is beautiful, but after less than an hour I had seen every nook and cranny of this small village. There is no access restriction or entry free, which does provide a more cool, original feel to the village…. even if its too easy to be visually distracted by the bright colors of people’s wares on walls when you should be looking at the tan ancient architecture behind them.
Given this wasn’t even the most visually striking Ksar I saw in Morocco (that would be Tizourgane, near Tafraout), I don’t really understand why so many tourists come four hours on bus from Marrakesch for a short stop. It kinda felt like people do it because people do it, rather than a real reason. It was difficult to see some of the least respectfully dressed foreign tourists of the trip.
Kasbah Tebi
Despite the tourist trap energy, I did have a once in a lifetime accommodation staying in a four turreted, 400 year old Kasbah Tebi within the UNESCO heritage site of Ait Benhaddou. The buildings, room, dinner area were all exclusively lit by candles and the live music at dinner was entrancingly good.
Anti-Atlas Studios
While here, I did check out the production studio over at Anti-Atlas Studios where I walked around a parody movie of Cleopatra with large Egyptian sets in the Moroccan desert (which was both cool and funny). It was very interesting to see a bunch of larger sets you could wander around, there are a lot of claims of movies like The Mummy movies, Gladiator movies, Game of Thrones, Hercules, Kingdom of Heaven, Babel, etc. filmed here and the internet says its “true enough”.
It was a little annoying to be nickel’d and dime’d: pay for parking, then the ticket, then the tour guide (if you want), then go back for another ticket if you want to see the Kingdom of Heaven castle, etc. but whatever. Are the people in costume part of the ticket, a tour, are they going to ask me to pay them if I interact with them? I don’t know, I’ll just keep my distance.
It was totally worth the extra ticket to hike out the distant Kingdom of Heaven stone castle, climb up a siege engine, walk the castle walls which were part stone, part scaffolding.
Summary
As a tourist, I would go to Ait Benhaddou if it was on the way (it was for me), but probably not worth the trek out here if you are spending any time in Southern Morocco which has Kasbahs-a-plenty or love movie associations with places.
