Les Jardins de la Koutoubia

Les Jardins de la Koutoubia solves in one go the hardest Marrakech equation: sitting inside the medina without giving up the comfort of a large hotel. The address is a 5-star with around a hundred rooms, set at the foot of the Koutoubia and three minutes from Jemaa el-Fna, where you usually only expect riads. The core of the house is a tree-lined patio where a pool stretches, lit at night, around which sitting rooms, terraces and restaurants gather. You come into a real hotel, with its reception, its lifts and its services, but you walk out on foot onto the most famous square in the city.

The kit matches, complete where a riad has to give up. There is the patio pool, but also a spa with hammam and steam room, a gym, several tables and bars, and most of all roof terraces facing the minaret. That is the point travellers quote most: taking a drink at sundown with the Koutoubia within eyeshot is on its own a good part of the stay. The house also delivers what you expect of an establishment this size, round-the-clock service and pick-up, praised across a very large review count.

The flip side is that of the scale, and it is predictable. With around a hundred rooms, this is not the intimacy of a guesthouse: the decor is classic, sometimes judged a touch dated, the atmosphere is that of a busy large hotel, and you cross people at peak hours. It is the price to pay for this location and these facilities, which few addresses gather this close to the square. Anyone after the charm of a small riad, a sharp decor or total silence will look elsewhere.

Les Jardins de la Koutoubia is chosen first for the location, and that is reason enough: sleeping at the foot of the minaret, with a pool, a spa and a roof facing the Koutoubia, three minutes from Jemaa el-Fna. In return, you accept the scale and classicism of a large hotel. For a first time in Marrakech, or for anyone wanting the medina without the constraints of a riad, it is one of the safe picks in town.