Morocco

• The Pleasure Domes - Abu Dhabi
• The butler did it - Bahrain
• Dazzled by Dubai - Dubai
• Dubai’s must-do half dozen - Dubai
• The Day Chris tried to swap me for a camel - Egypt
• Ten great wonders - Egypt
• Keeping up with the Joneses - Jordan
• You CAN afford star treatment… - Middle East
• The hippy haunts of Hendrix - Morocco
• Souks you, sir! - Morocco
• Travelling in the sands of time - Oman
• OMAN! What a desert oasis - Oman

THIS WAS HOW THE SULTAN must have felt, I thought to myself, as warm massage oil was rubbed into my naked body at the Riad El Fenn in Marrakech. For the riad, a restored townhouse in the walled city of Medina, is just the sort of place where sultans and arab princes would have kept their harems in days of old, dropping by for some maintenance at the end of a busy day.

From the dusty street the riad, with its old wooden door set in a stone wall, could not have looked more unimposing. We rang the bell, the huge door swung open and we stepped through the wardrobe into Narnia. Swaying palm trees, a huge mosaic tiled courtyard and endless sofas covered with rugs and cushions.

There to greet us with exotic cocktails and cold towels were our hosts Frederic and Viviana, the young couple who run the El Fenn. ‘This is where East meets West,’ said Frederic. ‘You are going to have such a great time.’ Spotting Annie Lennox’s signature and comments in the visitors book I thought he was probably right.

The riad is the stunning creation of Vanessa Branson, sister of Richard. Proving that entrepreneurial skills run in the family she has turned a crumbling ruin into a chic hideaway hotel with nine suites, each furnished with Moroccan tapestries, Berber rugs and leather clad floors. There’s a spa with a hamman steam room and a rooftop terrace with restaurant.

Vanessa loves modern art and paintings by up and coming British artists line the walls including a semi-erotic, self portrait by Tracy Emin. Part of an exhibition staged in Marrakech, it was apparently too much even for the Moroccans who are normally quite tolerant, and Tracy now hangs in the riad’s small library.

By the time we hit the famous Jemaa El Fna square the exotic nightly circus was in full swing with its snake charmers, fortune tellers, fire eaters and transvestite dancers turning tricks with Berber music and smoke from spit roasts floating above the hum.

There were food stalls selling nothing but aphrodisiac cakes, musicians, story tellers and tattoo artists. Shoeshine boys, witch doctors with bones selling magic potions and a man with a huge box of teeth offering to make dentures.

Assault on the senses

Marrakech is an assault on the senses. It’s noisy, hot, colourful, mad, frenetic and enchanting all at once and with a flight time of just three hours from London it’s easy to see how this has become one of the fastest growing choices for a weekend away.

Back in the Sixties Jimmy Hendrix, the Beatles and Stones came here for the exoticism, the climate and probably the wacky baccy. Today’s celebrities come for the climate, the sheer magic of it all and in the case of the two Kates (Moss and Winslet) for the shopping!

Celebrity spotters should head for the Café de France. It was rumoured that Brad and Angelina had been seen there sipping mint tea shortly before we dropped by for an aperitif on our way to eat at the Yacout restaurant.

The Yacout, with its tables set among exotic palm trees in the grounds of an old fortress, serves traditional Moroccan food including rich tagines, pastilles dunked in oil, and copious quantities of it. This is definitely an experience not too be missed.

There are so many good places to eat in Marrakech. We had a long and leisurely lunch under the shady grapevine at the Bagatelle, a small restaurant on Rue Yougoslavie. And we spent an enjoyable evening at the chic Bo-zin restaurant. British Michelin-starred chef Richard Neat’s restaurant Casa Lalla is highly rated but they weren’t serving wine because of Ramadan so we gave that one a miss.

The most memorable food of all turned out to be closer to home - on the rooftop terrace at our riad where Frederic’s staff served food fit for the sultan.

Foie gras, seabass and lamb tajines all beautifully presented with delicious sauces and mouthwatering desserts. This too was where we ate a sumptuous breakfast with home made muesli, yogurt, fruit and freshly baked croissants served with piping hot coffee, looking out across the rooftops and the nearby minaret to the Atlas Mountains in the distance, while preparing for our assault on the souks.

These are five minutes walk away situated among the labyrinth of alleyways leading off the Jemaa El Fna and each trade used to have its own defined area. The metalworkers, tanners, potters and rug makers are all still there but everything has turned into one colourful, jumbled marketplace. Brass lamps and lanterns swing on their fixings, great swathes of gold and silver jewellery, teapots and trinkets wink from their rudimentary showcases. Incense burns in the background. Ceramic stalls jostle for attention with sellers of leather slippers.

Haggle like a native

Most of the traders speak English and you are expected to haggle, normally down to about 50% of the price offered. It’s all done in good spirit but the golden rule as in any marketplace is negotiate only for something if you want to buy it. ‘I will give you four gazelles for your wife’ said one old man with a twinkle in his eye. Funny, I always thought wives were traded in camels. ‘You can have her for nothing.’ I replied. Morocco wasn’t always the friendliest destination for tourists and particularly women travelling on their own.

But five years ago special tourist police were introduced - their job to cruise the souks watching for beggars or traders hassling the tourists. Offenders found themselves behind bars so quickly that the landscape has changed dramatically and Marrakech now feels very safe. So effective are the tourist police that Moroccan men with Western wives or girlfriends now need to carry a licence so that if they are stopped they can prove they aren’t pestering the woman. It has been suggested that Marrakech is the future Dubai and property prices are already booming as developers move in.

Several modern villa developments are nearing completion and some of the world’s luxury hotel groups such as the Four Seasons, Aman and Mandarin Oriental all have developments under way. All are a little way from town. Richard Branson too, has recently opened a hideaway spa hotel called Kasbah Tamadot in the foothills of the Atlas Mountains about 50km from Marrakech. This is the last word in luxury and if you want several days of serious pampering it’s the place to go.

But if you are only there for the weekend my advice is to stay close to the action. Find yourself a riad in Medina. You’ll see and experience that much more and even better you’ll be able to pop back for a massage in between shopping expeditions!