Riad Tarabel

Riad Tarabel in Marrakech is possibly one of the most romantic places you will ever stay. Derived from ‘ryad’, the Arabic word for garden, a riad is a traditional Moroccan house built around an interior courtyard in which you will usually find four orange or lemon trees, a miniature pool and a fountain. What’s not to love? For those of us with chilly North European hearts, reared in unforgiving rows of streets or blocks of flats, they are quite simply heaven.

Mr Smith and I had arrived late, leaving behind a March London of stainless-steel skies and recession-chilled spirits to wake the next morning in an exotic land already warmed by a sprightly North African sun. The smell of orange blossom wafts through our bedroom window and the heart-soaring sound of birds in happy morning conversation fills our ears. There can be few things more delicious than waking up in Marrakech in early spring.

Our bed is a cloud of white cotton below the dusky blue sky of the ceiling; the domed windows – shuttered in the same silvery blue – are pools of light. From the bed you can look down the vast marble-floored room, through the tasteful sitting area (a cushion-strewn, double-bed sized canopy) to the bathroom. And what a bathroom it is. The England football team could clean off in the walk-in twin shower area, while the rugby squad soak in the Olympic-sized limestone bath. Not that you’d want them to – the decorative mirrors and organic soap would be wasted on them (though they might enjoy the giant hookah).

On our way to breakfast we take a peek at the other rooms (there’s just three and, at the moment, we’re the riad’s only guests). One has a floaty canopied four-poster bed, the other a claw-footed bath sexily taking centre stage. Everywhere is decorated in the same soothing Wedgewood blue and creamy white. The owners of Riad Tarabel are French – hence, perhaps, the winning combination of elegance and exoticism. Where there might have been a temptation to ramp up the kitsch until the rooms resemble the souk outside, here ornate flourishes – a lavish bedstead, gilded birdcages, a pearly chandelier – offset the muted tones and natural fabrics.

Upstairs, there’s an extravagant sitting room, which, with its giant rattan armchairs, potted palms and ornamental parrots, recalls a glamorous 1970s Snowdon photoshoot. There’s also an opulent dining room on the ground floor. Both salons are dominated by imposing Napoleonic pastoral paintings, which may sound incongruous but, like everything else about Riad Tarabel, somehow work. The overall effect is one of spaciousness, indulgence and simplicity.

It is decreed sufficiently balmy for breakfast on the roof terrace, and we eat while surveying a view of glittering domes, ramshackle roofs, half-finished building works and towering cypresses, all framed by the majestic Atlas Mountains. Our hostess – a chic French friend of the proprietors – joins us after breakfast to share her tips on everything from the best place to have lunch to where to find the best rip-off designer bags and boutiques.

We exit the riad’s ancient iron front door and head down a little passageway into the bustling, dusty, slightly smelly, sprawling labyrinth of the medina. Souk virgins be warned. As Mr Smith observes on our return, it’s not a dissimilar experience to a trip to Ikea. You spend hours wandering around, getting over-excited (it’s all so cheap), only to get home with a heap of things you don’t really want or need. After much browsing and haggling, I buy a silver teapot that makes water taste of petrol and, more alarmingly, produces a nasty green froth, as well as seven pairs of sparkly Moroccan slippers as presents – none of which remotely correspond to the sizes I was assured they were. But it’s all part of the fun.

It is perhaps because of the somewhat sullying effect of the souks that the locals are so fond of their hammans. We were quite unprepared, though, for Riad Tarabel’s version. After being greeted by a beautiful young man wearing only a pair of swimming trunks, we are silently scrubbed, buffed and polished, then occasionally sloshed with buckets of warm water as reverentially as if we were a pair of vintage Bentleys. Poor Mr Smith, never entirely comfortable with the whole semi-naked-physical-contact-with-strangers schtick gets all hot and bothered, and not just because it’s so steamy. He’s only too glad to be dismissed when it’s time for my massage.

Sleepy, de-stressed and well and truly scrubbed down, we don’t want to venture back outside. So we settle down on cushions in the imposing dining room and feast on a Moroccan banquet with only the gentle background sound of the fountain to accompany us. After a delicious supper and a bottle of rosé, the extremely courteous waiter sets up a projector and – Mr Smith is particularly impressed by this bit – transforms the room into our own private cinema. As we lie back to watch The Great Gatsby (which must have been inspired by the decadent surroundings), we feel as spoilt and glamorous as Daisy Buchanan and Jay Gatsby themselves. I told you Riad Tarabel is impossibly romantic.

At no small trouble to the baggage handlers at Marrakech airport, we manage to bring back – along with enough trinkets to set up a stall in Camden Market – a beautiful small mosaic fountain. It’s now valiantly attempting to recreate the riad-courtyard effect in our Shepherd’s Bush garden. All we need now are four orange trees.