Four Seasons Resort Marrakech

The Four Seasons is a city resort without the city constraints. It takes up sixteen hectares in Hivernage, the great-hotel quarter south-west of the centre, along Boulevard de la Ménara. At the gate begin the gardens of the same name, their great basin and their Saadian pavilion: you head there on foot at sundown. The medina and Jemaa el-Fna are ten minutes by car, the airport under five. That is the balance of the address: you sleep quiet, in the green, without giving up the old town on the same morning.

The estate holds 141 rooms and suites, including 27 suites, spread across low ochre pisé pavilions rather than one building. Most open onto the gardens, a pool or the palm grove; some, on the upper floor, take in an Atlas view. The architecture stays restrained - tadelakt, moucharabieh, chiselled lanterns - without slipping into postcard decor. The rest follows: two outdoor pools, one adults-only, a spa with hammam and treatments, three restaurants covering Moroccan cooking, Andalusian and southern Italian, two tennis courts, a gym. The service, praised by travellers (9.2 on Booking across more than six hundred reviews), holds the level the brand asks for. It is also one of the rare city palaces built for families: on-site kids’ club, connecting rooms and babysitting place it easily among the addresses you visit with children.

That leaves what you come for. The Four Seasons has neither the soul of a riad nor the tight charm of a medina house: it is a large international resort, comfortable and smooth, where you cross conferences and weddings in high season. Anyone dreaming of old-style patios and lanes at the door will feel more at home in the old town. Value for money is the most measured score travellers leave (8.6), and the price sheet stays that of a palace: from around £383 a night in low season, often well above from March to May and at year end. You book it for the space, the quiet and the children - not for the city-centre address.