El Bahia Palace, Marrakech, Morocco

Work on building El Bahia Palace started in 1880 for the great vizier Sidi Moussa. It was later used by sultans Moulay Hassan and Moulay Abd el-Aziz, though Sidi Moussa was the de facto minister of the kingdom. It is likely that he had this 160-room palace built for one of his official concubines, El Bahia Palace meaning palace of the beautiful. There are many luxurious apartments and courtyards. The various interior gardens and courtyards are heavily decorated with stucco panels, tiled floors and zellij work decoration. El Bahia is a good example of the Eastern architecture of the 19th century. It that took 15 years to complete and comes with 8 hectares of garden.