14 places, from £60 to £357 a night.
In the Palmeraie, the Ksar Char-Bagh is a small palace built like a ksar, drawn from the Alhambra: paved courts, fountains, olive and fig trees across several enclosed hectares. Only around fifteen suites, three pools and an underground red-marble spa. You come for the calm and the space, far from the bustle of the medina.
The PL Place is closer to a retreat than a hotel: only nine rooms, tucked in a dense Palmeraie garden, around a pool and a domed pavilion. The heavily decorated suites play caidal tents, patina and lanterns, each with its green corner. An intimate, densely decorated address, for cutting off from the city rather than visiting it.
In the Palmeraie, fifteen minutes from the medina, Les Deux Tours is the house designed in the 1980s by the architect Charles Boccara: 44 rooms spread across pisé pavilions, three hectares of Andalusian gardens, patios, pools and a heated pool. You come for the calm and the hand of an architect, not for palace living.
In the Palmeraie, fifteen minutes from the medina, Les Cinq Djellabas lines up ten lodges under conical thatched roofs among an olive grove. A human-scale guesthouse, designed by its owners around a heated pool and a Moroccan table. You come here for the calm and the orchard, not for the souks at the door.
Set in a palm grove north of Marrakech, the Tigmiza is a red pisé palace tucked under the palms, with three pools, a spa and rooms treated as works of their own. Suites, bungalows and villas spread through a garden, fifteen minutes from the centre. A calm-and-decor address, for anyone accepting to sleep outside the walls, off the medina's buzz.
In the Palmeraie, ten minutes by car from Jemaa el-Fna, the Villa Al Assala holds ten junior suites set in a large garden, around a domed pavilion and a heated pool. A human-scale address, betting on quiet and green rather than the number of rooms.
In the Palmeraie, Dar Sabra is less a hotel than an open-air art gallery you sleep in. Two hectares of olive trees planted with sculptures and pop frescoes, around twenty all-different rooms, three pools: you come here for the decor as much as for the rest, ten minutes from the medina but off its buzz.
A member of Relais & Châteaux, the Palais Ronsard cultivates a theatrical luxury in the Palmeraie: marble, black lacquer, chandeliers, rooms personalised one by one, and a garden where the pool stretches between palms. Twenty-seven rooms, a large spa, private-house service. A high-end address, at its price, for anyone after quiet and set-dressing rather than the medina down the lane.
The Palais Nouhass bets on space where Marrakech often lacks air: a recent palace of the north palm grove, opening onto a large garden, with a long pool lined with palms and the Atlas as backdrop. Eighteen rooms and suites, a monumental Berber sitting room, a spa with hammam. A green, ample and calm address, for anyone coming to sit down far from the medina.
In the Palmeraie, a fifteen-minute shuttle from the medina, the Iberostar Waves Club Palmeraie is a large all-inclusive resort of 318 rooms set on 10 hectares of gardens: three pools, a water park with slides, kids' clubs and an all-inclusive package. You book it for a family holiday without logistics, not for the character of a riad.
In the Palmeraie, twenty-five minutes from the medina, the Palais Namaskar strings out 41 rooms, suites and villas along reflecting pools and water gardens, under a golden dome. You come for space, quiet and a top spa - not to head out into town at any hour.
Opened in 2022 in the Palmeraie, the Palais Mirage d'Atlas holds a handful of suites laid out around a long pool and a palm grove. You come for the spa, the calm and the space, 9 km from the medina. Comfort convinces, but location and value for money are up for debate. Here is who it fits, and who it does not.
On the edge of the Palmeraie golf course, twenty minutes from the medina, this adults-only 5-star all-inclusive has changed hands three times: Golf Palace, then Rotana, today Pickalbatros. The setting, golf and palms, stays its real card. The traveller score says not everything is up to par.
In the Palmeraie, about twenty minutes from the medina, the Valeria Madina Club is a large 4-star family resort in the all-inclusive format: 432 rooms, broad pools, a water park and daytime entertainment. Volume and a contained budget rather than character, with a low traveller score you need to know before booking.
