Travel guide
A riad is a traditional house built around an inner courtyard, and staying in one is a highlight of any trip to Morocco. These are the riads and palace hotels we book most often in Marrakech and Fes — chosen from years of sending our own clients — and how to pick the right one.
From the lane, most riads are a heavy wooden door in a blank wall. Inside, the noise of the medina disappears: rooms open onto a courtyard with a fountain or orange trees, a roof terrace looks out over minarets, and breakfast arrives on the terrace with fresh msemen and mint tea. Most have between a handful and a few dozen rooms, so service feels personal.
Riads inside the medina put you a short walk from the souks, but cars cannot reach most doors — porters bring the luggage the last few hundred metres. If you want a large pool, gardens and a car at the door, a palace hotel or a garden hotel just outside the walls may suit you better. We mix both on most trips.
La Maison Arabe began as a legendary medina restaurant and is still famous for its cooking, with its own cookery school, intimate courtyards, a palm-fringed pool and a candlelit piano bar, a short walk from the souks. It is one of our most-booked addresses — and home to the hammam ritual we recommend.
El Fenn is a design-led hotel of 41 rooms and suites made from several old riads joined by five courtyards near Bab Laksour, known for its contemporary art collection, colour-saturated rooms and one of the medina’s most popular rooftops. Lively rather than hushed — a hotel for travellers who like atmosphere.
Villa des Orangers is a Moorish-style villa turned five-star hotel, with arched doorways, a spa and a pool, close to the Koutoubia. Les Jardins de la Médina is a calm five-star retreat in the kasbah quarter with a restaurant, bar, outdoor pool and spa — space and calm inside the walls.
For the very top, Royal Mansour is a “medina within the medina” of 53 private riads, each with its own courtyard and roof terrace, linked by lanes, with five hectares of gardens and a 2,500 m² spa. La Mamounia, Marrakech’s grande dame for a century, is a palace hotel set in walled olive and citrus gardens — strictly not a riad, but a destination in itself.
Palais Faraj sits just inside Bab Ziat at the top of the medina, with 30 suites in Moroccan-Andalusian style, a spa with a traditional hammam, an outdoor pool and a roof terrace looking across the whole of Fes el-Bali. Its position on the edge of the medina makes arrivals by car easy, which matters in Fes.
Riad Fès is a five-star Relais & Châteaux property in the heart of the medina, all carved plaster and intricate tilework, with fine dining, a rooftop terrace and a spa — Fes at its most refined.
Karawan Riad is a serene riad steps from the Qarawiyyin, with a plant-filled courtyard and a rooftop over the medina. Dar Roumana is a five-star riad deep in the lanes of Fes el-Bali, and Riad Mazar keeps the simple, authentic soul of a traditional medina house. For a garden hotel outside the walls, the Fes Marriott Jnan Palace offers space and a large pool.
Browse all the hotels, riads and camps we use, or see how hotel choice affects the price.
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