Kasbah Bab Ourika

It was built rather than converted, raised from rammed earth in the old Berber way, the pisé packed by hand and left the colour of the ground it stands on. That is the point of it. From across the valley you can barely tell where the hill ends and the walls begin. The rooms are done one at a time, Berber rugs and mid-century pieces and collected furniture, most opening onto a private terrace with the ground falling away below. Paths run down through mimosa and pepper trees and orange trees to a pool set in a warm hollow, jasmine and bougainvillea over the water, the gardens loud with bees. For somewhere this high and this dry, it is a surprisingly green place, and it runs light on the land: the earth walls hold the heat, and the hot water comes off the sun.

The table

The kitchen works off its own gardens, and the menu turns on what they cut that morning. It is Moroccan mostly, with a European hand, and you eat it wherever the day suits. Lunch by the pool, a picnic carried out onto the hill, a pack made up for a walk, dinner by candlelight on a terrace once the light has gone. Nobody here is chasing a star. They feed you well, in the open air, with the peaks going pink at the end of the day, and up here that is plenty.

Why it's in VANE

Marrakech has no shortage of grand riads, and most visitors never leave the city. Bab Ourika is the argument for driving out. It trades the medina for silence and altitude, sets the Ourika Valley and its Berber villages on the doorstep, and hands you the High Atlas at every turn. We would take it for the setting alone. Be warned that it is a fair way from the airport, and the last climb to the gate is rough, which is exactly what keeps the day-trippers below. Give it two or three nights, walk in the mornings, and let the pace of the valley settle over you.