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.
First visit, want atmosphere
A riad inside the medina — La Maison Arabe in Marrakech, Palais Faraj or Riad Fès in Fes.
Travelling with children
A property with a pool and space — Les Jardins de la Médina, or a garden hotel outside the walls.
Design and buzz
El Fenn.
Once-in-a-lifetime
Royal Mansour or La Mamounia.
Light sleepers
Ask us for a room away from the courtyard — sound carries in a riad, and some are near a mosque.
Browse all the hotels, riads and camps we use, or see how hotel choice affects the price.
Brahim Jounh
Founder · guiding since 1999
Your Morocco specialist
Brahim was born in Agoudal in the High Atlas and has guided travellers across Morocco since 1999. Tell him your dates and what matters most, and he’ll tell you honestly what the weather, the crowds and the prices will be — then design the route himself.
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