Winter is arguably the best season to visit Marrakech. The temperatures cool but not too much so it makes for the most pleasant walking weather – and this is certainly a city to go walking. Around every corner you’ll find a palace, a garden, a tower, a green courtyard restaurant, and sellers of everything from the sweetest of dates to the most gorgeous of carpets.
Above all, Marrakech is a city of merchants and it always has been. For a thousand years, it has been a hub of the spice trade and it was the last major city on the Silk Road before it reached Europe. When you dip into the souk, be prepared for some pretty impressive negotiating skills – these people have had quite a bit of practice.
Even in winter, there are still crowds in the great square of Djemma el Fna – not to mention acrobats, snake charmers, henna artists, juice makers and water sellers in their colourful conical hats. The pink city is wonderful but is never less than full on whatever time of year you go. So, what you really need in Marrakech is your own oasis of calm to relax at the end of hard day’s haggling. And there are few that compare to La Sultana, a series of five riads that have been turned into the most exquisite hotel.
Located within the Medina and overlooking the Saadian Tombs, it’s a stone’s throw from the Royal Palace, the Bahia Palace and Djemma El Fna itself. The five riads flow into each other, forming a seamless whole, opening up into courtyards with fountains and ferns here, or a pool there. It took three years to create and has just celebrated 20 years since its opening with an absolutely gorgeous coffee table-sized book, La Sultana Style. As well it might.
This is a jewel box of a place, filled with traditional tiles and filigree plasterwork, wood that’s carved and painted with delicate artistry, beautiful furniture and ironwork, ornate copper and brass ornaments, sculptures and paintings. There is bowl after bowl filled with sweet-smelling roses, a spa with three individual hammams and its own pool where you relax between marble columns. Chandeliers drip crystals, palms shade the open courtyard where you have breakfast under a blue, blue sky while sparrows peck crumbs from the tiles.
The bedrooms are vast, filled with antiques and paintings (mine featured plenty of leopards as that was its name), the bathroom featured a bath made for two and (nice touch) was also equipped with Dyson hairdryers and straighteners. The biggest suite, the Lion, is some 1,000 square feet and has its own separate living room. Your suite also comes with a mobile phone so you can arrange a spa appointment or restaurant booking, a car to pick you up from town if you just can’t manage another step, or simply to run a bath or make you a gin and tonic.
The food is pretty special, too. The main restaurant is lit with candles in the evening and has tables around the main courtyard pool. At night, it celebrates traditional Moroccan cuisine and, indeed, music with an oud player and singer. It doubles as the breakfast room where there is a sumptuous buffet (baba ganoush for breakfast? Yes please) as well as an a la carte menu.
Upstairs, they also have the biggest roof terrace in the medina with loungers, yet another pool, the bar and another restaurant, this one serving lunch and dinner with a more cosmopolitan menu. It’s an exquisite spot, lush with greenery and views over Marrakech and as far as the snow-capped Atlas Mountains. By night, the moon rises in an inky sky, by day your nearest neighbour is a stork sitting atop a tower on its remarkably messy nest.
There are plenty of activities on offer if you can stir yourself from the life of a voluptuary which the atmosphere here very much encourages. There are cooking classes at the roof terrace kitchen and La Sultana arranges experiences such as buggy driving in the countryside, hot air ballooning, visits to the Yves Saint Laurent Museum, an evening in the nearby Agafay Desert, lunch in the Atlas Mountains and, of course, tours of the city and the souk.
Whatever you decide to do, it’s a little bit of heaven that awaits your returns. The riad of your dreams? Almost certainly.
For more information about La Sultana, including details of inspiring experiences, special offers and surprise packages, please visit www.lasultanahotels.com.
In the second part of this three-part series on Moroccan destinations, it’s time to head to the coast…
