Riad Catalina

The Riad Catalina holds in an 18th-century dwelling, behind a medina door, in a derb west of the old town. The position is one of the address’s assets: Jemaa el-Fna and the Koutoubia are reached in a five-minute walk, the souk starts at the corner of the street, and yet you stay in a quiet derb where you come home in the evening off the crowd. Travellers give it 9.7 for the location, and it is deserved.

The court has kept its central fountain, its orange and palm trees, its benches in the shade where mint tea is taken at hot hours. Around and on the floors, twelve rooms and three suites, in an owned Moroccan register: painted cedar ceilings, zellige friezes, walls of tadelakt and tinted lime, bathrooms with copper washbasin and coloured stained glass. Some suites open onto a private terrace. The sitting rooms keep the same spirit - a brick fireplace lit in winter, low benches under carved stucco arches. This is a big house more than a confidential riad, and it comes through in the welcome as in the room count.

The house made the choice to set its pool on the terrace rather than dig it in the patio: a basin ringed with sun loungers, with the Koutoubia minaret in the axis and the Atlas summits at the back on clear days. You do not swim much - the basin is measured - but you cool off with a view few medina riads can offer, and take tea at sundown. The restaurant serves a Moroccan table on booking, breakfast is included, and the welcome handles transfers and excursions on request. 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 swim: the roof pool is a water point for cooling off, not a basin where you chain lengths, and you have to reckon with direct sun, no big shade in the afternoon. The house has no hammam or spa on site - a massage is arranged on request, but for a real wellness circuit, you have to go out. Access goes on foot through lanes sometimes crowded with carts and mopeds, you go up by stairs, no lift, and the decor, very loaded, will not please anyone looking for a contemporary line. For a family or a couple wanting a big medina house, calm in the court and a roof pool with a Koutoubia view from around £64 a night, the address lands right and is well placed. For anyone expecting a full spa, a lap pool or hotel services, better look elsewhere. Here, you pay first for a spot in the middle of the old town and a terrace facing the minaret.