Should you remove shoes?

Look down at the doorway and the house will tell you. A row of shoes at the threshold, a mat, your host padding about in babouches — that's the answer. Moroccan homes are divided into shod and unshod territory, and the border usually runs along the edge of the carpet. You can cross a tiled courtyard in your street shoes, but the moment you drift toward the sedari, the low banquette seating where life actually happens, off they come.

It's practical long before it's religious. People pray on the floor, eat around a low table on that same carpet, and the street outside has donkeys, drains, and dust with strong opinions. Shoes carry the street in, and nobody wants the street on the carpet where the baby sleeps after lunch. Mosques are the one absolute — nothing past the door, ever. Carpet shops, charmingly, play it both ways: shoes on while you browse, off the moment the good pieces are unrolled at your feet. That's when you know the visit has become serious.

Shops, cafés, tiled riad courtyards — shoes stay on. And when in doubt, count the shoes by the door and quietly add yours to the collection.