Essaouira Souks
The souk quarter of Essaouira is compressed into a handful of lanes behind Place Moulay Hassan — spices, silver jewellery, argan oil, thuya wood, and the occasional Gnawa instrument. Less overwhelming than Marrakech, more legible. The spice sellers here carry coastal varieties — dried sea herbs, preserved lemons, the particular ras el hanout blend of the Atlantic south.
The souks of Essaouira run along a single main axis — the Avenue de l'Istiqlal — with workshops branching off to either side. The layout follows the city's grid logic: you will not get lost here the way you will in Fes.
The speciality is thuya wood. Essaouira is the only city in Morocco with a concentrated thuya woodworking tradition — the workshops are in the souks and the raw material comes from the forests east of the city. Boxes, chess sets, tables, picture frames — all carved from the root burl of the thuya tree, which gives a dense, swirling grain that polishes to a high sheen.
The other crafts are textiles (Essaouira has a weaving tradition tied to the Jewish community that once lived here), silver jewellery (mostly imported from Tiznit but sold here), and the increasingly generic Moroccan souvenir economy — leather bags, argan products, ceramics from Safi.
Bargaining follows the same rules as everywhere in Morocco, but with lower starting prices. The tourist density is lower than Marrakech, and the vendors less aggressive. A thuya wood box that starts at 300 dirhams in Marrakech starts at 150 here. The quality is higher too — these are the workshops, not the resellers.
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