Riad BB Marrakech

The Riad BB Marrakech holds in six rooms behind a medina door, in the derb Fhal Zefriti, at the south-west corner of the old town. Location is the address’s first asset: Jemaa el-Fna is reached on foot in four minutes, the Koutoubia is five hundred metres away, Le Jardin Secret about ten minutes through the souks. You sleep in the middle of the old town, within reach of the big square without taking its noise at night, since the derb stays calm once the lane is left.

The court has kept its central fountain, its armchairs in the shade and a large terracotta vase, under a sculpted plaster ceiling. Here is the decision that sets the house apart. Rather than dig a basin in the patio and sacrifice the court, it set its pool a floor up, on the terrace. The patio stays a real cool court, where you retreat at hot hours. The six rooms are spread around it and on the floors, in a light Moroccan register - lime and tadelakt walls, rounded headboards, pom-pom bedspreads, bathrooms with vaulted showers and standing washbasins. Some open flush on the patio, others on a small private terrace. Air conditioning is standard, Wi-Fi included.

The terrace unfolds a basin ringed with sun loungers, under a pergola and bougainvilleas, with the view running over the medina rooftops to the minarets. In the evening, the basin lights, and this is where breakfast is taken in the morning, continental, vegetarian, vegan or gluten-free on request. Travellers give the house 9.3 on Booking, with a 9.9 mention for the welcome and 9.9 for the location, which says the address’s profile. For anyone after the same criterion, the quarter has no shortage of houses that moved their basin to the heights: see those that let you swim on their terraces.

That leaves who it fits. The first caveat has to do with the pool: what Booking calls a pool here is a terrace basin, good for cooling off and dipping at hot hours, not for swimming lengths. You need to know before booking. The house has no hammam or spa, where several medina riads offer scrub and massage on site: for that, you have to go out. Access goes on foot through lanes sometimes crowded with carts and mopeds, there is no parking at the door, and you go up by stairs, no lift: big cases have to be hauled by hand over several levels. For a couple or two friends wanting a real medina house, a spot four minutes from Jemaa el-Fna and a roof pool to close the day from around £85 a night, the address lands right and is well kept. For anyone expecting a full spa, a lap pool or hotel services with a lift, better look at the big garden houses of the Palmeraie. Here, you pay first for a preserved old court and a spot in the middle of the old town.