The catch at Dar Rhizlane

Dar Rhizlane is in Hivernage, the garden district west of the Medina walls, behind a gate on Avenue du Président Kennedy, and a car drives up to the door. The walk to Jemaa el-Fna is about 2.3 km and takes 32 minutes, by Avenue Mohammed VI and the Koutoubia, which is 24 minutes away. That is a fine walk on a mild morning and a long one back after an evening in the souks. By taxi it is about 5 minutes to Place de Foucauld, beside the square, on clear roads, and the hotel allows 15 when the traffic is heavy. The Théâtre Royal, on the edge of Guéliz, is 17 minutes on foot and the railway station 20.

The Serail rooms, in the left wing, have a large double bed, Egyptian cotton sheets and marble bathrooms with both a bath and a walk-in shower, and like every room in the house they open onto an Andalusian garden or a flower-filled terrace. What they do not have is a second space: at about 25 m² there is nowhere to sit apart from the bed, which starts to matter on a longer stay or a wet afternoon. La Favorite, the next rung, is about 35 m² and adds a separate sitting room with sofas. For two nights from Tuesday 16 March 2027 the Serail was €295 a night for two and La Favorite €440, about €145 a night more.

Breakfast is served in the hotel restaurant from a menu rather than a buffet. The continental version brings pastries and bread, butter, jam, honey and homemade yoghurt; the oriental one brings msemen, beghrir and batbout, the Moroccan pancakes and breads, with olive oil and honey. Both come with freshly squeezed juice, coffee and a choice of teas. A list of free extras adds fruit salad, orange slices, cheese, charcuterie, dates and dried fruit, semolina or oat soup and eggs cooked to order, among them an egg tajine with khlii, the Moroccan preserved meat. Even so, on a week's stay the mornings vary little from one day to the next.

The pool sits in the Andalusian garden, with lunch and dinner served on the terrace beside it in good weather, and the White Suite looks over it. It is the only pool: there is no indoor pool, and the hotel publishes nothing about heating or a swimming season. For most visitors that changes little, since the garden, the terrace and the hammam are the point. It matters for a winter-sun trip between December and February built around a daily swim. The spa's traditional hammam, a hot, humid steam bath with scrubs, massages and wraps, is the warm alternative, with a relaxation area and hot drinks afterwards.

Dar Rhizlane is built for quiet, and its terms show it. Children aged 4 and under stay free in the existing bedding, children from 5 to 12 pay a supplement, and from 13 they count as adults. Each room takes at most one extra bed, so a family of four with two children over four needs two rooms. There is no kids' club and no children's pool, and the gardens around the entrance are water gardens of lilies and papyrus, with a zellige fountain. The house suits older children who are happy with a pool, a garden and dinner at the table far better than toddlers.