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The most famous hotel in Morocco and one of the 'Top Twenty Leading Hotels of The World', La Mamounia is still every bit as much a legend in its own lifetime as the umpteen global celebrities who’ve stayed here. You can read their comments in the Livre D’Or guestbook. One thing is clear: they keep coming back.

Experiencing the Mamounia is more than just about staying in the most centrally located of the smart hotels in Marrakech – a 10 minute stroll away or 5 minutes by horse and buggy. It’s more than the aggregate of its deluxe 5 star facilities – impressive restaurants, bars, tennis courts, squash courts, a golf driving range, Hammam, Casino, superb swimming pool and all the usual malarky. It is to feel supremely good about yourself and life, knowing that you are plugged into something special. In 1943, Churchill magnanimously shared the secret with Roosevelt: his balcony at La Mamounia was ‘the most lovely spot in the whole world’. It was a view he painted in comfort many times over.

At La Mamounia, high quality 'moments' hit you one after the other. The common parts, to use a woefully inadequate term, are verging on the monumental. That’s why you will see visitors reeling around in awe, cameras clicking and flashing , films dropping out like so many shelled peas. This can be off-putting for some - the place is a tourist attraction in its own right. And, by the way, if the Moroccan restaurant doesn’t knock you senseless you need surgery. The 17 acre, 200 years old Gardens, originally an C18th Sultan’s gift to his son, Moulay Mamoun (hence, ‘La Mamounia’) are beautifully healing, whether or not the souks are beginning to get to you. Just try a swim in that large, heated outdoor pool, simultaneously under the direct rays of the sun and snow-capped gaze of The Atlas Mts. Feast on the hotel’s heady mix of Art Deco meets Morocco, haunted throughout by a beguilingly understated perfume especially designed for and exclusive to La Mamounia. Best of all, leave the comfortably informal, muted earth tones of the bedroom and get onto that balcony facing Parkside - and do sunrise, lunch and sunset there. Marrakech doesn’t have that many visitable tourist sights anyway so don’t feel guilty: you will remember a day in the Mamounia long after the others have been forgotten.

May I leave you with one final thought? To stay even one night at La Mamounia will be as good for your soul as 500 USD a night for a Parkside Double ( b&b ) will be bad for your wallet. But it *should* have been worth it. You may have bought what is normally unbuyable: a deep contentment.

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