El Badi Palace
Ruined sixteenth-century royal palace of sunken gardens and storks nesting on marble-stripped walls.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to El Badi Palace in Marrakesh opens with a court jester who, asked to praise the sultan's brand-new palace, predicted instead that it would one day make a fine ruin. It traces Ahmad al-Mansur's victory over a Portuguese invasion, the ransom money that funded these three hundred sixty rooms, and the vast sunken courtyard built to overawe visiting ambassadors. Look for the twelfth-century minbar from the Koutoubia Mosque, still kept somewhere among these walls.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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