What can you do in Marrakech in one day?

You can absolutely do Marrakech justice in a single day — I plan exactly this for guests on a tight layover or a short break, and the secret is geography, not speed. Marrakech splits into two worlds: the walled medina (old city) and Gueliz (the new, French-built quarter). Spend your morning and evening in the medina, slot the afternoon in Gueliz, and you avoid criss-crossing the city in the heat. Start early, around opening time, because the light is soft and the monuments are blissfully empty before the tour groups land.

Open with the Bahia Palace — its painted cedar ceilings and tiled courtyards are the most beautiful in the city and a gentle introduction to Moroccan craft. From there it's a short walk to the Saadian Tombs and the Kasbah quarter, then I'd let you drift north through the souks. Don't over-plan this part; the joy of the souks is wandering, getting pleasantly lost among the lantern-makers, the dyers' alley and the spice mounds, and emerging near the Ben Youssef Madrasa, a former Quranic school whose central courtyard is a masterpiece of stucco and zellige. Climb to any rooftop café for a mint tea and your first view over the medina rooftops to the Atlas beyond.

For lunch, eat on a rooftop terrace overlooking the square or a souk alley — somewhere you can sit, cool down and watch the city move below you. Then switch worlds: a ten-minute taxi takes you to Gueliz and the Jardin Majorelle, the cobalt-blue garden Yves Saint Laurent rescued, with its bamboo, cacti and that unforgettable blue. The adjoining YSL Museum and the Berber Museum round it out. This green, calm, modern pocket of the city is the perfect antidote to a busy souk morning, and it's where you feel Marrakech's cosmopolitan side.

Save Jemaa el-Fnaa for the end, because the great square is a creature of dusk. Arrive as the sun drops and you'll watch it transform: orange-juice carts, snake charmers and Gnaoua musicians give way to rows of open-air food stalls firing up grills under a haze of smoke, storytellers gathering circles, and the whole place humming with energy. Eat here if you're brave — skewers, harira soup, snails for the daring — or retreat to a balcony restaurant ringing the square and take in the spectacle from above with a tagine. It's the most theatrical dinner in Morocco.

My honest one-day formula: medina monuments and souks in the morning, rooftop lunch, Majorelle and Gueliz in the afternoon, Jemaa el-Fnaa at sundown. It's a full, slightly intense day, but it gives you the palaces, the craft, the gardens and the legendary square — the true essence of Marrakech. If you have even a second day, you can slow all of this right down, and our short Marrakech itinerary maps exactly that.