The house
The house
Our riad in the Marrakech medina was restored by the family, room by room, with the craftsmen of the neighbourhood: zellige laid by hand, tadelakt smoothed with a stone, carved columns, painted cedar ceilings. Ten rooms around a patio with a pool, and a roof that looks out on the Atlas.
The family
Sara, Malak and their mother welcome you as they would at home.
We meet you at the entrance of the derb, carry the bags through the lanes, and the mint tea arrives with the pastries before you have even put your bag down.
Sara’s mother runs the kitchen: breakfast every morning on the roof, tagines in the evening on request, homemade pastries and sorbets. Sara and Malak take care of the rest — the good addresses, the taxi, the hammam, Wednesday’s excursion.
Nobody here recites a script. It is a family house that receives guests, and you hear it in every conversation in the patio.
The patio
The heart of the house
A pool edged with zellige, carved columns, banquettes in the shade and the light of the stained glass moving across the walls as the day goes by.
You read there, you have lunch there, you doze there in the afternoon. It is also the coolest place in the riad when Marrakech goes past forty degrees.
The roof terrace
Above the rooftops, the Atlas.
Breakfast is taken there facing the minarets; on clear days the snow-capped peaks appear to the south. At the end of the day the light turns orange and the call to prayer crosses the terraces.
Sun loungers, cushions, corners of shade: it is the second sitting room of the house, and the best place to dine in summer.
Craftsmanship
Handmade, in Marrakech
Zellige
Every tessera is cut and laid by hand. The pool, the floors and the lower walls of the patio are covered with it.
Tadelakt
Lime polished with a pebble and black soap: the bathrooms are soft to the touch and seamless.
Plaster and cedar
Carved columns, chiselled arches, painted cedar ceilings: the work of sculptors from the medina.
Found nearby
Lanterns, rugs, pottery and copperware come from the neighbouring souks. We can point you to the workshops.
The neighbourhood
Bab Aylen, the medina that lives.
The riad is in a lived-in derb, away from the tourist streets: the corner grocery, the bread oven, children playing. Jemaa el-Fna is a fifteen-minute walk away, the souks just behind.
The airport is fifteen minutes by car; we arrange the transfer on request, and a member of the family always comes to meet you at the entrance of the derb.
- Address
- Derb Aghrab 132, Bab Aylen
- Jemaa el-Fna
- 15 min on foot
- Airport
- 15 min, transfer on request
- Languages
- French, Arabic, English
- Reception
- Around the clock · free Wi-Fi
- Rooms
- 10 rooms and suites
