To get to the new house, you walk down a corridor to the left of Dar 91 and then up some steps to the first floor, where you find a two-room flat with a tiny understairs kitchen and windows over the city wall.
Further up lie two more flats, each with two rooms – and then the stairs wind on, finally reaching the 4th floor roof terrace, with views to the sea and across Essaouira’s old and new towns. All three flats cluster around the ‘mrah’ or central riad hole, although the previous residents had blocked this off with plastic and chipboard so as to create some privacy.
It seems unbelievable that this house, which now lies empty and has become so familiar to us, was so recently home to no fewer than 21 people. On our early visits our memories of its labyrinthine layout were so transitory that we thought we’d never make sense of it!
