La Sultana Marrakech

A riad keeps its beauty on the inside, round a courtyard, and La Sultana, several of them joined together in the Kasbah, has courtyards to spare. Its best room is the roof, though: 2,000 square metres of terrace, with a view that runs from the minaret of the Koutoubia to the snow on the Atlas, and an edge that looks straight down into the courtyard of the Saadian Tombs, with which the hotel shares a wall. Below it the restoration went in for carved cedar and zellige. One suite has terracotta walls, a round fireplace under a fluted hood like a tent, and the bed set back in a carved and painted alcove. The spa is pink marble: a columned hall, a long sunken pool under hanging lanterns, and a fire lit at the far end, as though water and marble were not enough.

Recommended for couples who want the medina at the door and a roof to retreat to, and for families with no pushchair to carry: children are welcome, with cots and extra beds, but the old houses run to staircases and changes of level, and cars stop about 30 metres short of the entrance. Jemaa el-Fna and the souks beyond it are ten minutes' walk, and lunch is back up on the roof at La Table du Souk, facing the minaret of the Moulay El Yazid Mosque. After the hammam, dinner at La Table de La Sultana draws on a cellar of more than 3,000 bottles, among them a cuvée made for the hotel. The Odette, the rooftop bar, mixes its cocktails with Moroccan spices and keeps going until one in the morning, which the neighbours over the wall, Saadian sultans since the late sixteenth century, have never once complained about.