Catherine Anne P
July 25, 2024
These, once upon a time, homes/Riads, (six in total,) to the wealthy, many wived Moroccan men are a step back in time and, from every perspective, a continuously mesmerising, beautifully maintained and restored feast for the eyes. Brilliantly, now used as hotels. The internal wood carved balconies and tiled pools and walkways are stunning. I was not a fan of the local spices on my hotel food, but their Tagines and bread rolls never let me down and were absolutely delicious! (When ordering a meal here, be sure to, where possible, ask that spices are not added or dusted onto your food and drinks as they are very acquired taste. Chef will absolutely add them to everything including drinks and pudding if you don’t.) Make sure your Riad has an open air swimming pool in it without a public street trek to another location… you’ll need it! The rooms are air conditioned and cleaned regularly to a good standard. Don’t leave money out as the cleaners will assume it is a tip and take it. Before booking here, check there isn’t an additional daily room tax to be added at the end of your stay, (We had to pay it, but argued for the amount to be considerably lowered first as it was sprung on us!) The rooms, in spite of their good size can be a bit gloomy and claustrophobic as there is a lack of external light. We were given a free smart phone by the hotel for the total duration of our stay… very useful for navigating etc!. (If you lose it you have to pay for it!) Sadly, the wealth of the Riads belay the poverty, declining industry and the very dangerous roads/alleyways outside. Having left the safety of your beautiful Riad, Immediately, Marrakesh’s many fast moving mopeds become a threat to life and limb as the very narrow and alleyways have no pavements and are its roads you have to walk to get anywhere…nowhere outside is safe from them. As you approach the open market squares in addition to the mopeds, you then have to content with many cars and to the untrained tourist, it is very stressful trying to cross roads, even identifying where to walk/what is road and what isn’t becomes terrifying. Extreme caution and alertness required at all times. (This is no place for children.) Animal welfare is not good… many horses (hitched to tourist carriages,) left standing in 40+ temps with no observable free access to water or shade for hours on end. There were many litters of kittens wandering around, some, clearly close to death. There were quite a few very elderly female beggars. The smell of the open street drains, whilst intermittent, was vile. Night seems to be the time when young local families come out to chill sitting around the market squares… one very worrying incident I observed was group of under tens running around with burning boxes. They did this for a good hour in very windy conditions. There seemed to be no parents nearby and unrelated passing local adults did not intervene. A difficult experience for me to witness as I was three flights of stairs up at