What does nobody tell you about Morocco?

Nobody warns you how physically demanding a Morocco day is. The sights are gorgeous, but a medina is hours of walking on hard, uneven, sometimes filthy cobbles, dodging mopeds, going up and down stairs, in heat, with sensory overload draining you in a way that sightseeing in a tidy European capital never does. Clients who pride themselves on fitness are floored by mid-afternoon on day one. The honest tip is to plan a single neighbourhood per outing, retreat to your riad's cool courtyard at midday like the locals do, and treat the trip as a marathon of small efforts, not a sprint.

Nobody tells you that the romantic riad has a flip side. Those thick-walled, windowless-onto-the-street houses are blissfully cool in summer and atmospheric always — but in winter they can be genuinely cold and dim inside, heating is often a single portable unit, and rooms can be dark because the windows face inward to the courtyard. None of this is a flaw; it's the architecture doing its job in a hot climate. But if you book a riad in December imagining toasty boutique-hotel warmth, you'll be surprised. Ask about heating, and bring layers for indoors too.

Nobody quite prepares you for the tea, the bargaining-as-default, and the rhythm of the week. You will drink an astonishing amount of sweet mint tea, and refusing it can feel rude, so pace yourself. Prices that look fixed often aren't, and even some cafés and taxis expect a little negotiation or rounding. And the country has its own clock: Fridays slow right down for the main prayer and family lunch, many shops shutter for a few hours, and during the month of Ramadan daytime life contracts dramatically while nights come alive. Plan around these and you flow with the place instead of fighting it.

The thing nobody tells you that actually matters most, though, is that the sights will not be your favourite memory. People come for the Sahara and the souks and leave talking about the driver who sang Berber songs over the pass, the riad host who remembered their daughter's name, the shopkeeper who poured tea and talked football for an hour with no sale in sight. Morocco's real gift is its people and its generosity, and the more you slow down and engage human-to-human, the more of it you receive. That's the part the brochures can't photograph.