Les Deux Tours

Located in the heart of the Marrakech Palmeraie (palmgrove), fifteen minutes drive from Marrakech, Les Deux Tours hotel is about a mile down a dusty track. It is in an almost-biblical setting - a seemingly endless expanse of palm trees dotted with little clusters of sheep and small hamlets.

The hotel takes the form of a series of villas set in a lush and fragrant walled garden, with two towers that overlook the original entrance. There are twelve standard rooms and 12 junior suites.  Some have fireplaces and several have impressive domed bathrooms; all have bath or shower, air-conditioning, telephone and satellite tv. There are also six premium suites and six luxurious Pool/Jacuzzi suites, each of which has a small heated pool and one with a jacuzzi, garden, sitting room, bedroom, fireplace and dressing room.

No two rooms or suites are the same, although all share the same sublime use of zelige (mosaic) for the floors, tadlakt (a cool, marble-like surface made from limestone) for the walls, and Tataoui (Oleander wood) for many of the ceilings. The architect responsible for Les Deux Tours in Morocco is the renowned Charles Boccara, whose exquisite taste, style and charm flood the place, and his inspiration with its mixture of Moorish, Egyptian and Turkish architecture is quite apparent. There is a lovely heated swimming pool in a grassy setting and a superb hammam with massage and beauty treatments available. Meals are served in the terraced dining room, and breakfast can be taken in your room or suite. There are 3 salons, a bar and a games room in the main building. Transport into town is by taxi ordered at reception or three times a day with the hotel's free shuttle service.

Les Deux Tours hotel is an ideal setting for a wedding or other party and can provide most services on special request.

Freelance travel writer, Anna Melville-James, stayed at Les Deux Tours in Marrakech with Lawrence of Morocco in January 2013, writing for the Sunday Times Travel Magazine
The Secret Garden

Marrakech is a city of secret gardens, everyone told me before I went. A city of riad walls sheltering courtyards of fountains and songbirds from the colourful Medina mayhem outside the door. But I didn’t really fancy battening down the hatches – I wanted a bit more room to breathe. On Max’s recommendation I head out to the Palmeraie, at the edge of town, an oasis of calm where the only noises are palms rustling and the haunting calls of the muezzin over the sand.

Here, down a winding lane, the luscious walled garden of Les Deux Tours hides its surprises behind natural fronds and manmade design quirks like a coquettish fan dancer. A door to a room here amid the jasmine, a cosy seat behind a beaded curtain there.

Sitting, straw hat perched over my nose, breathing sunshine in our private pool villa courtyard, I feel palpable peace like a gong sounding deep inside my chest. Swimming in tea-temperature water or even reading seems a bit industrious. So I put my book down and just…am for a bit. And how often are we just…ourselves these days? Running from one activity or thought to another. In this most frenetic of cities I have found a still point. A private world (my villa) within a private world (the hotel) that has become my private world for a week.

Of course I venture out – occasionally – to walk down paths patterned with foliage shadows or eat breakfast on the terrace, as birds cluster round me like a Disney movie (the crumbs…). I see people, occasionally, disappearing up a path to the hammam, or in the distance, by the pool. But we are all in our own worlds really.

And when the sun sets, and tea lights appear along every path and terrace, the hotel takes on an even more enchanting air. The sky above is slate covered with spilt flour. The lanterns cast speckles of light in front of our feet like petals. The restaurant, where open fires crackle and a musician plays the hypnotic Moroccan lyre, calls us in.

And all is right with the world. Wherever the rest of the world is. Perfect.