Riad le Clos des Arts

The Riad le Clos des Arts holds in nine rooms behind a studded door, in a derb of Riad Zitoune Jdid, at the south-east corner of the medina. That is the principle of the riad - a house turned inward, which keeps its light and calm for the court and offers to the street only a blind wall. The quarter places the address five minutes on foot from Jemaa el-Fna and steps from the Dar Si Said museum and the Bahia palace: you are inside the old town, but off the pressure of the souks, in a residential derb where you mostly hear the fountain.

The house has two patios rather than one. The first shelters a fountain on a green and white zellige floor, low benches and potted palms rising towards the open sky: the court where you take refuge when the medina bakes outside, at the asr hour. The second, more open, is set around a palm planted in the ground and holds the morning tables. The nine rooms are spread across the floors, each in a different register - ochre pink lime walls, hand-rubbed tadelakt, zellige in the bathrooms, and chiselled plaster ceilings that make the decorative strength of the house.

The terrace, on the top level, unfolds benches, plants and a cool basin in green zellige where you dip at hot hours, with sun loungers and parasols and a view over the medina rooftops. Breakfast is taken in the patio or on the terrace, and a table d’hôtes - a three-course daily menu, market produce - books ahead. The house heats its hammam with solar energy and offers scrub and massage on site, which spares you looking for treatments out. Yoga classes are arranged on request. Travellers rate it 9.5 on Booking, with a higher mention for couples’ stays, which says the profile of the address. For anyone after the same register, the quarter has no shortage of houses run in this spirit: see the other medina riads.

That leaves who it fits. The first caveat is the basin: what is called the roof pool here is a water point to cool off, not a basin where you swim lengths. You need to know before booking for the swim. Access goes on foot through lanes sometimes crowded with carts and mopeds, and there is no parking: you drop the bags at the end of the derb, the riad picks them up. The house has nine rooms on several levels, no lift, and rents whole for groups, up to 23 people. On a private-hire evening, you share the patios and the terrace with the party. For a couple or two friends wanting a well-placed medina house, calm, a terrace and an on-site hammam from around £109 a night, the address lands right. For anyone travelling in a large family or expecting a lap pool, better look at the big garden houses of the Palmeraie. Here, you pay first for the decor and a spot inside the old town.