All aboard the Marrakech express

Bargaining is the bête noire of many visitors to these souks. Small fortunes are made from some tour groups, who, led around like sheep, open their wallets like lemmings. One local shopkeeper explained it like this: worth is what you are prepared to pay, not sell. It goes up, it comes down - "just like the stock market," he added glibly.

For an idea of quality crafts and Moroccan aesthetics, one should make for two museums in the south of the Medina. At the Dart Si Said, turn-of-the-century residence of a Sultan's chamberlain, the Museum of Arts boasts carpets and kilims, furniture and jewellery. Rooms and halls open on to a tranquil courtyard with arcades, pools and a pavilion. Nearby, Maison Tiskiwin is a private museum in an elegant mansion. Exhibits - much as at Dar Si Said, plus fabrics and clothes - are arranged regionally and reveal the colourful diversity of rural Morocco.

If dusk is the hour of djinns, most seem to roost in the Djemaa el Fna. It's as if the nocturnal spirit of the souks and medina scuttles out to forage. First the restaurateurs wheeling carts with benches and stoves, then come water sellers with clown-like outfits and gourds. Gnaoua trance-musicians clash finger cymbals and pound hypnotic beats, heads twirling like tops. There are acrobats and monkeys, men who'd like to drape snakes around your neck, and parrots to predict the future.

While some antics are tourist fluff, others reflect deeper traditions. Berber storytellers and theatre groups hold locals rapt amidst a circle of glowing lanterns. Healers with arcane body-maps and stale pills bark through loud-hailers just as a "dentist" might be pulling teeth.