Commissioned by Saadian sultan Ahmad al-Mansur and built between 1578 and 1593 with ransom paid by Portugal after the Battle of the Three Kings, El Badi was once one of the most opulent palaces in the Islamic world. Stripped of its marble, gold and onyx by Sultan Moulay Ismail from 1707 onwards, the surviving 135 × 110 m sunken courtyard remains in monumental ruin.
Why visit
El Badi is the most ambitious Saadian palace ever built and the clearest physical record of Morocco's 16th-century imperial peak. Its scale — a 135 × 110 m sunken court with a 90-metre pool — is impossible to read from photographs and only makes sense once you stand inside the walls.
What to expect
Vast rammed-earth ramparts patrolled by storks, a sunken courtyard split by symmetrical pools and orange groves, the surviving Qubba al-Khamsiniya and Qubbat az-Zujaj pavilions, and a small museum housing the original Koutoubia minbar.
Best time
Late afternoon for the best light on the rammed-earth walls and to combine the visit with a sunset walk to the nearby Saadian Tombs and Kasbah Mosque. The site is largely unshaded, so avoid midday in summer.
Price range
El Badi Palace is ticketed: 100 Dh for foreign adults and 50 Dh for foreign children aged 7 to 13; 30 Dh for Moroccan and resident adults and 10 Dh for their children aged 7 to 13.
Free for Moroccans every Friday and on the first days of national and religious holidays. Tickets are sold by the Ministry of Culture at the entrance or on its e-services platform.
Practical tips
Allow 60–90 minutes. Wear closed shoes — the sunken courts and ramparts have uneven stone and gravel surfaces. The minbar is housed in a separate climate-controlled room; check signage at the entrance for the current display schedule.
El Badi — 'the incomparable' or 'the marvellous' — is one of the 99 Names of God in Islam. Sultan Ahmad al-Mansur chose the name to signal both his personal piety and his ambition to build a palace without equal.
About a century after it was completed, Sultan Moulay Ismail of the Alawi dynasty had the palace systematically stripped from around 1707 onwards. Marble columns, zellij, gold leaf and timber were removed and re-used in his new capital at Meknes and other Alawi monuments.
The 12th-century minbar (pulpit) of the Koutoubia Mosque, commissioned in 1137 in Cordoba, was moved to El Badi Palace in 1962 to protect it. It is now the centrepiece of the on-site exhibition.
Most of the central courtyard, the four sunken gardens, and the surviving pavilion ruins are walkable. Underground service passages and parts of the ramparts can also be visited; uneven steps mean the site is not fully step-free.