Porte Bab Er Robb

This guide to Porte Bab Er Robb in Marrakesh follows the one gate in the old medina walls once reserved for robb, a cooked wine tightly regulated by the city, carried in by caravan drivers for centuries despite the law against it. It traces the dispute among historians over whether the twelfth-century Almohad ruler Yaqub al-Mansur built the gate or whether it predates him, back to the earlier Almoravid dynasty. Stand at the bend in its passage, unlike any other gate in the medina, and notice how the stone forces you to turn back toward the city.