Parc de la Koutoubia

This guide to Parc de la Koutoubia in Marrakesh begins with a hidden failure: somewhere beneath the lawns lies a mosque nobody prays in anymore, abandoned by the Almohad ruler Abd al-Mu'min after his builders got its prayer direction wrong. It follows the decision to tear it down and raise an identical twin nearby, the Koutoubia Mosque whose minaret rises beyond the palms, finished around 1199. You'll hear how the park takes its name from the kutubiyyin, the manuscript sellers whose stalls once filled the surrounding souk. Walk the shaded paths past the same palms and orange trees the old accounts describe.