Itinerary

Saadian Tombs, El Badi and Bahia in One Day

By Sara Malak · Updated August 2026 · 7 min read

Yes — comfortably, and with a long lunch. The three sit within fifteen minutes' walk of each other in the Kasbah and Mellah. Go in this order: Saadian Tombs at 9:00am opening (20–30 minutes), El Badi Palace at 9:45am (1–1.5 hours), lunch, then Bahia Palace around 2:00pm (45–60 minutes). Entry is 100 MAD each, 300 MAD in total per adult, paid separately at each gate — there is no combined ticket. You can still have the tombs booked in your name before you arrive.

The day at a glance

Total: about five hours including lunch, 300 MAD in entry fees, and roughly a kilometre of walking spread across the whole day.

Why this order, and not the reverse?

Because only one of the three has a bottleneck, and it is the first stop. The Saadian necropolis is entered through a narrow passage cut into the Kasbah Mosque wall, and the gilded chamber is viewed from a threshold rather than walked through. That geometry turns any crowd into a single-file queue: arrive at 11am in spring and you can spend longer waiting than looking. Our timing guide goes into the seasonal detail, but the rule is simple — be at the gate before it opens.

El Badi has the opposite problem and so makes a perfect second stop: it is enormous, so it never feels full, but it is also almost entirely unshaded. Walking its courtyard at 10am in June is pleasant; walking it at 2pm is an endurance test.

Bahia is the one to leave until after lunch. Tour groups work through it in the late morning, and its rooms are small enough that twenty people at once changes the experience. By early afternoon the coaches have moved on, and its painted cedar ceilings are best seen with the sun already high.

The walk between them

All three are in the same corner of the medina, south-east of Jemaa el-Fna, and none of the legs need a taxi.

Saadian Tombs → El Badi Palace, about 5 minutes. Leave the necropolis, cross Place Moulay El Yazid in front of the Kasbah Mosque, and head east on Rue de la Kasbah. The palace entrance is on Ksibat Nhas, past the long red rampart wall.

El Badi → Bahia Palace, about 8 minutes. Out to Place des Ferblantiers — the metalworkers' square, and a good coffee stop — then north through the Mellah on Rue Riad Zitoun el Jedid. The Bahia entrance is on the left, marked by a queue that moves quickly.

Google Maps is unreliable inside the medina; the walls block the signal and the alleys are not always drawn. These three, though, are on wide streets a child could follow.

What each one actually gives you

They are not three versions of the same thing, which is why the combination works.

The Saadian Tombs are the intact interior: Carrara marble columns, a gilded cedar muqarnas ceiling, zellige laid in the 1590s and never redone. Twenty minutes of the most concentrated craftsmanship in the city — see the chamber guide for what to look for.

El Badi is the scale: a 100-metre courtyard, a sunken orange garden, storks nesting on the ramparts, and a wall-top view over the medina to the Atlas. Stripped of everything decorative by Moulay Ismail, it reads as a floor plan at full size. Our sister guide at badi-palace.com covers it properly.

Bahia is the lived-in one: 150-odd rooms built for a grand vizier in the 1860s, painted ceilings, courtyards of orange trees and tiled fountains, the newest of the three by three centuries. visitbahiapalace.com has the room-by-room detail.

Tickets, cash and what nobody tells you at the gate

Each monument sells its own ticket at 100 MAD for a foreign adult. There is no combined pass, no city museum card that covers all three, and no discount for doing them on the same day — anyone selling you one at the gate is selling you something else.

The booths take cash in dirhams and are unreliable about change for a 200 note, so bring small bills. Children under 7 enter Bahia free; at the tombs and El Badi, ask at the window rather than assuming a rate.

Nothing here needs a guided tour, but the tombs are the one site where knowing what you are looking at changes it — the labels are minimal and the best details are ten metres away behind a barrier.

If you only have a morning

Do the tombs and El Badi, and drop Bahia. They are five minutes apart, they tell one story — the same sultan's death and his life, as our comparison explains — and both are finished by 11:30 if you start at opening. Bahia deserves an unhurried hour of its own and is a fifteen-minute walk from Jemaa el-Fna whenever you next pass.

If it is July or August, invert the priority instead: tombs at 9:00, Bahia at 10:30 for its shaded courtyards, and leave El Badi's open ground for another day's early morning.

With children, and in the heat

El Badi is the one that works with kids — space to run, storks to count, ramparts to climb. The tombs work only at opening, before the queue forms; a nine-year-old will give you fifteen good minutes there. Bahia sits in between: courtyards to cross, but rooms where "don't touch" is said a lot.

From June to September, the whole route depends on starting early. There is no shade in El Badi's courtyard, little in the necropolis garden, and the walk between them is on open streets. Carry water, and treat 1pm to 4pm as lunch rather than sightseeing — that is what everyone who lives here does.

Frequently asked questions

Is there a combined ticket for the three monuments?

No. Each site sells its own 100 MAD ticket at its own gate, and there is no pass covering all three. Anyone offering a "combined ticket" at the entrance is not selling an official product.

How much walking is it in total?

About a kilometre across the day: five minutes from the tombs to El Badi, eight from El Badi to Bahia, and fifteen from Bahia back to Jemaa el-Fna. All of it on flat, wide streets.

Can I do all three in the afternoon instead?

You can, but the tombs will cost you a queue and El Badi will be hot. The Saadian Tombs close at 4:45pm with last entry around 4:30pm; El Badi and Bahia run to 5:00pm. Starting after 2pm makes three stops tight.

Which one should I skip if I am short of time?

Bahia — not because it is the weakest, but because it is the easiest to reach on another day from the main square. The tombs and El Badi are neighbours and belong together.