Riad Swaka

The Riad Swaka holds in eight rooms behind a medina door, in a derb of Riad Zitoun Jdid, at the south-east corner of the old town. The quarter is one of the more settled of the medina: the Dar Si Said museum is about a hundred metres away, the Bahia palace seven minutes on foot, and Jemaa el-Fna with its souks reached in about ten minutes, off the pressure of the great commercial arteries.

The court keeps its Moroccan register: zellige floor, potted orange tree, low sitting rooms under the arches, and at the middle a bowl where petals float. Here is the decision that sets the address apart: rather than shrink the court to a basin, the house has moved a second pool up to the roof. The terrace, on the top level, unfolds this open-sky bath against a zellige water wall, ringed with sun loungers, potted cacti and a bougainvillea, with a green pavilion and mosaic tables for the evening. The view runs over the rooftops and the palm trees, and at sundown the lanterns light along the basin. The eight rooms are spread around the patio and on the floors, each in its style - sculpted wood headboard, tadelakt in the bathrooms, old photos on the walls.

In the morning, the Moroccan breakfast is taken in the patio or on the terrace. In the evening, the house restaurant serves a Moroccan table on booking. The riad runs its own hammam, a hot tub and a treatment room, where scrub and massage book without going out - a rare comfort at this price level in the old town. Travellers give the house 9.1 on Booking, on over four hundred and fifty reviews, with a 9.8 for the welcome, which says where the house puts its care. 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 bathe on their terraces.

That leaves who it fits. The first caveat has to do with the pools: neither the patio one nor the roof one is built for swimming lengths, these are basins where you cool off, not swim lanes. You need to know before booking for the swim. The roof pool is open to the sky, so cool out of season and exposed to the wind on grey days. Access goes on foot through lanes sometimes crowded with carts, and the house is climbed 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 bath on the roof, an on-site hammam and a quiet position ten minutes from Jemaa el-Fna from around £77 a night, the address lands right and is well kept. For anyone travelling in a large family, expecting a pool where you swim or hotel services with a lift, better look at the big garden houses of the Palmeraie. Here, you pay first for a spot in the middle of the old town and that basin set on the rooftops.