This is Day One for us in Morocco. We’re just a couple of hours by air from France, but generations (centuries, even) away. I don’t realise it then, but we are soon to discover that nuss nuss can apply to much more than just coffee in this country, for Marrakesh itself is a dichotomy.

Late in the afternoon we head for Jeam Elafna,the city’s main square. Nothing could have prepared us for this. The jarring noises, the mingled smells of horse dung, mint tea, incense, smoke – or the aggressive marketing: snake handlers, dazzlingly dressed dancers swivelling to frenzied Berber bagpipes, water sellers, acrobats with bells, henna artists, tarot card readers – even a little man seated on a square of pavement feeding teaspoonsful of milk to a hedgehog and scattering crumbs for his tamed pigeons. Oh, and the denture man on the ready to supply upper or lower sets immediately!

Part carnival, part bedlam, this mobile mosaic is threaded through with a swirl of camera-toting tourists, robed locals, motorbikes, donkey carts and horse-drawn carriages, the latter ones inaudible in the general hubbub.

‘It’s a zoo!’ says our guide, Abdellah, laughing like a proud father showing his children a special treat.

It’s a photographer’s paradise, too, so long as you pay the fee. Our guide keeps negotiating rates and feeding low denomination dirham to each group so we can attempt to capture the colourful acts and characters.

Finally, he leads us up several flights of stairs to a terraced rooftop café overlooking it all, where we join other tourists sipping mint tea. Long shadows lace the gyrating dancers and promenading crowds. Now, visible, on every mudbrick rooftop, are clusters of white saucers – satellite dishes. Like cups to gather rain, these are set to capture the moods and modes of other worlds. Other cultures.

Halfway along, a heavy door, knobbed with iron studs, opens and inside we discover a palace. Riads were originally the gracious homes built for the nobles of the court. Close to the palace, they afforded luxury and privacy. This one is no exception. The inner walls are covered with lacy filigree and etched mosaics stretching three storeys high. The open central courtyard allows just a peep at the indigo square of evening sky.

(Maison Arabe)

In this serene interior there is no hint of the chaotic medina just a few blocks away. The only sound is the tinkle of the water fountain ­– the badge of a true riad – surrounded by plants in the centre of the tiled floor, and the welcome clink of our mint teas arriving on a tray. Sensory overload, reprieve!

But noise and colour is just part of the assault on our senses we're experiencing. At every turn, there are fragrant herbs and spices, onions, just-baked bread. Our riad cook, here, is making delicious little cornmeal rolls.

At one laneway opening we bend and creep inside and discover a communal oven baking the carefully covered trays of rised dough, brought for the baker to feed into the constantly glowing hearth oven. Somehow he could remember wach batch and who it belonged to.

Breakfast in another riad delivers this, and we realise the link with France which still persists, especially in many dishes.

But then the Moorish influence re-establishes itself on the menu in dishes like this b'stilla, rich with pigeon meat inside the imporbably flaky pastry, fragrant with an Aladdin's mix of spices, and unexpectedly sweet. That's icing sugar and cinnamon dusted on top.

Despite the alfresco loation, this meat smells fresher than most butcher's shops at home. The turnover is fast, and often there's a hopeful lineup of cats on the footpath below, ready for anything that drops.

There is little greenery in a city whose palette is geared around ochre and terracotta, whitewash and stone, but at this cactus garden, Jardin Majorelle, the love-child of painter Jacques Majorelle, there is a cool (albeit spiky) oasis.

One morning we take a clip-clop tour of the city. These calèches are everywhere, an inexpensiv way to see  the city at the pace that suits it best. Find out how relaxing it is by watching the video HERE.

The contrasts continue. In a stark environment, the heat, the dust, the veils and shaded corners, there are constant surprises. Intricate inlaid tiles, fretwork, masonry carved into exquisite lacy patterns - beautiful symmetry, geometric shapes and angles, balanced and representative of ageold beliefs.

But always there is food. Surprising us on stalls everywhere, carefully layered in a isplay case like these tender crumpet-like breads; bursting out of baskets, heaped on tables. 

Spilling over onto the street. Fruits, bread, confectionary. Olives glistening by the vatful, heaps of dried figs and apricots, almonds....

The largesse of the Mediterranean anointed with the exotic aromas and colours of the East. For underneath it all, Marrakesh is still a merchant's city. Commerce rules, and while the pressure is generally low-key, the goods on offer would rival any wares that could have been available for hundreds of years across the camel trails of Central Europe, Asia, and ultimately here on the top corner of Africa.

Brass, copper, silver, bolts of irridescent fabrics, silks, intricately worked carpets and tapestries – it's all here, somewhere, hidden in the labyrynth of laneways. And you can be sure for the appropriate tip (or commission), a guide can be found to lead you to whetver you are searching for.

Nuss nuss. In Arabic, it means half-half. It can refer to a coffee: half coffee, half milk. But it also fits Morocco itself. In religion, tradition, even the light and shade – boisterous and tranquil – mixture of squares and riads, Morocco’s magic counterbalance is as delicate as the silversmith’s scales, as rich and varied as the stands of jewelled sugar soaked pastries that tempt us at every corner.

It's everywhere, and to a visitor, unaccustomed to such a richly textured vibrant atmosphere, it's as seductive as the snake charmer’s pipes.

Want to see more? Talk to Morocco by Prior Arrangement.