Riad Smara

The Riad Smara holds in five rooms behind a studded door, in a derb of Arset El Houta, one of the artisan quarters of the medina. Arset El Houta lives at the rhythm of the workshops and the stalls, off the commercial pressure of the great souks, but within reach of everything: reckon ten minutes on foot to Jemaa el-Fna, seven to the Spice Square. The current owners have taken up the house and repainted it room by room, with hammered-metal furniture, painted furniture and rugs brought from several regions of the country.

At the middle, a zellige basin under a plaster arcade, chased-metal lanterns, banana and other trees rising towards the open sky. Two or three sun loungers stand by the water, and the court stays in the shade a good part of the day: that is where you take refuge at the asr hour, when the medina heats up. The five rooms - two rooms and three suites - open onto this court or on the galleries, each in a different colour register: a cobalt blue room with a wrought-iron bed, others in ochre or bare lime, hand-rubbed tadelakt, private vaulted bathrooms. Air conditioning is standard, heating is on in winter, Wi-Fi included. The stay plays mostly on the roof and at table: in the morning, the continental breakfast is taken on the terrace, a sundeck furnished with sun loungers and topped with a Berber tent, from which you look over the medina rooftops and, on a clear day, the snowed summits of the Atlas behind the minarets. A Moroccan table books ahead, and you can book a hammam or a massage on site. For anyone after that register, the quarter has no shortage of addresses run in the same spirit: see the other charm riads of the medina.

That leaves who it fits. The caveat is that of every riad of this calibre, and it is worth saying clearly: the patio basin is a cool point, not a pool where you swim, even if Booking talks of an indoor pool. Access goes on foot through lanes sometimes crowded with carts and mopeds, and there is no spa or big hotel comfort on site - the hammam and treatments book one by one, at a supplement. At five rooms, you share the court and the terrace with the other guests, which makes the address’s charm but leaves little intimacy on a full night. Travellers give it 9.2 on Booking on nearly six hundred reviews, with a 9.8 mention for the host: that is where the stay plays, in the welcome. For a couple or two friends wanting a real medina house, calm, a terrace with a view and a careful welcome from around £81 a night, this is a right address. For anyone travelling in a large family or expecting a pool and hotel services, better look elsewhere, at the big garden houses outside the walls. Here, you pay first for a human scale and a spot in the old town.