Souk Semmarine

Souk Semmarine is the main artery of the Medina's market district, the covered passage that runs from the edge of Jemaa el-Fna up to the Ben Youssef quarter, and the spine from which the specialized souks branch off. Its name has nothing to do with what is sold here now: a semmar was a farrier, and in the caravan centuries the men who shod the pack animals worked at the entrance to the souks while their owners went in to trade. The farriers are long gone. Textiles, bags, lamps and souvenirs took the space. The passage is roofed with a lattice of wood and metal that filters the light into a warm, intermittent thing, different from the full sun outside and from the darkness of the narrow covered derbs branching off to either side. Walking its length, the souk widens and contracts, opening at the intersections where passages diverge toward the leatherworkers, the dyers, the spice sellers, the metalworkers and the woodcarvers. Near the top it forks, and just before the fork Rahba Kedima opens on the right, the small square of herbalists better known as Place des Epices. Weekday mornings are the best of it, when the crowd thins and the wholesale trade between buyers and shopkeepers is still visible alongside the retail. What is on offer changes as you go: the first stretch is aimed at visitors, the deeper sections at people who live here.