La Mamounia

La Mamounia was conceived in 1923 by the architects Henri Prost and Antoine Marchisio, and built in the grounds of a palace garden that Sultan Mohammed ben Abdallah gave to his son. The name is often translated as safe haven. The hotel occupies roughly 8 hectares of walled gardens, which is what makes it feel unlike anywhere else in the city: you step off Avenue Bab Jdid and the noise simply stops. It has 135 rooms, 71 suites and 3 riads. The interiors you see today date from a three year renovation led by the designer Jacques Garcia, after which the hotel reopened in 2009. Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle and Franklin D. Roosevelt all stayed here, and the hotel has traded on that history ever since without ever feeling like a museum. This is the choice for a first trip to Marrakech when the hotel is meant to be part of the holiday rather than a place to sleep between excursions.