Review of Riad Dar Sara, by Ben Cooper

Arriving in Marrakech late at night is a reliably taut, stressful affair. The cab dropped us somewhere vaguely in the vicinity of Bab Doukkala; casting our utterly useless map aside we struck off in whatever seemed like the right direction. Before we knew it we'd picked up a couple of 'guides', who took us deeper, and not altogether convincingly, into the warren of dark streets.

By the time we'd found our way to Riad Dar Sara, we were hot, tired and considerably flustered. Ashid the night porter ushered us in out of the pitch black; weary tip given to our determined street sherpas, we staggered towards an expansive seating area and collapsed over a steaming pot of mint tea. Then, quite suddenly, the call to prayer rings out across the city, and the magic of the riad starts to have its effect.

And Riad Dar Sara is magical. Genuinely. Once Ashid had left us and padded off to attend to some other duty, a near-silence descended on the place, broken only by the gentle burbling of a fountain.

A couple of huge orange trees rose skywards, intertwining in their upper reaches with a vast and ancient bougainvillea. Underneath, the sense of peace and detachment from the swirling morass of the medina is complete. From time to time a pink petal, disturbed by the birds nesting in the canopy, slowly floated down and settled in the water.

Along one side of the patio, a gallery was draped with long white curtains which billowed gently in the occasional warm puffs of breeze. Candles twinkled in their alcoves as we drifted off to bed slightly dazedly, as if in a dream.

The next day the dream stubbornly refused to lift as I poked around the riad in the cool of the morning. Riad Dar Sara looked even better in the daylight than it did the night before. Up on the roof, I settled under a large tent-like area with an acrid cup of coffee and took in the views of the nearby Dar El Bacha Palace rising grandly above the flat roofs of the surrounding houses.

Unlike some renovated riads in Marrakech, there are still plenty of original features to catch the eye at Riad Dar Sara. Our bathroom was entered through a low horseshoe doorway; windows are held in with beautifully elaborate ironwork; looking up as you climb the staircase to the roof terrace, you can see the rudimentary structure of adobe smeared between thin beams.

For a small riad, it's not short of modern amenities and can call on some quite impressive services, too: babysitting services, meals on demand, tour guides – all on two-hour standby. On the facilities front, towards the back of the riad, there's a cobalt blue dipping pool, startlingly bright against the dun and white background, and a very affordable little spa/treatment room, too. Corridors and rooms are all spotless – apart, that is, from a healthy layer of rose petals scattered here, there and everywhere.

As you get towards the smaller, more intimate end of the scale, it's hard not to fall for even your average riad in Marrakech. And Riad Dar Sara is far from your average riad in Marrakech. Add a seriously tempting price tag to the stunning premises, and it all adds up to just about the most affordable slice of genuine historical charm in the whole city. I was left utterly smitten.