Agdal Gardens

This guide to the Agdal Gardens in Marrakesh opens with the 1873 drowning of Sultan Mohammed the Fourth in a reservoir his own dynasty inherited from a garden laid out seven centuries earlier. You'll hear how the Almohad ruler Abd al-Mu'min founded the estate in 1157, and how his engineer solved the challenge of growing orchards at the edge of the Sahara using underground channels carrying snowmelt from the Atlas Mountains. Listen for how sultans once trained soldiers to swim in that same pool.