On a #Travelife to Morocco, I went shopping in souks and climbed hills in the middle of the desert outside of Ouarzazate. I also bought a Moroccan Berber carpet and learned how to make a chicken tagine at the Palais Amani in Fes. On this trip, one of my best memories was a stay at the Palais Amani.

HOW TO GET TO THE PALAIS AMANI IN FES

To say that the Palais Amani underwhelms at the outset is an understatement. I still remember with not a little trepidation our arrival on the first of my two visits to Morocco last year. We’d driven from Rabat, the capital of Morocco, to the edge of the ancient town of Fez. 

We passed by the palace of the King and skirted the walls of the medina before alighting in a parking lot full of wheelbarrows of food and dry goods. There were also vehicles in various states of disrepair, and masses of people – from rambunctious teenagers playing ball games to old ladies hawking homemade sweets.

And then we had to trudge up a narrow alleyway used by donkeys and pockmarked with stones, entering this via a steep staircase sandwiched by a budget hostel with a television blaring on the top floor and an equally cheap-looking café serving the ubiquitous chicken tagine. This was the way to the Palais Amani.

A BEAUTIFUL RIAD IN FES

It wasn’t quite the setting I’d imagined for a stylish boutique hotel in exotic Fez. In fact, my companion had very clearly asked me with unhappy undertones, as we navigated an unpicturesque passageway and walked along an equally spartan corridor towards our destination: “What kind of hotel have you booked?”

WHAT LIES BEHIND

Fortunately, I chose to ignore this rhetorical question and to simply let the hotel I’d booked eventually speak for itself.

Like many of the best experiences of Morocco, the beauty of Palais Amani lies hidden behind its heavy wooden doors. A dozen steps past these doors inside was a lovely 600-square meter garden. 

This was palatial, considering we were inside the medina of Fez. It’s a setting of greenery, dancing fountains and intricately tiled walls. In fact, the entire riad spoke  of a graceful past as the well-loved home of a prosperous family.

Palais Amani is the biggest authentic riad in Fez. But it’s also charming in an intimate way. I was instantly enchanted by the low-key and easy elegance of this hotel.

UNIQUE HOTEL ROOM IN FEZ

Our room was very interesting, as well. I’m sure it was the best suite in the riad because it occupied one whole wing of the second floor. We entered via a living room into a bedroom.

The bedroom had two separate dressing rooms and five large floor-to-ceiling windows with French-style balustrades that overlooked the garden. The bathroom was in a lovely room that was as large as a home in Fez itself.

LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT IN MOROCCO

It was definitely love at first sight, for me and this suite. We spent many happy days here at Palais Amani, discovering the best attractions in Fez. This is the kind of city one either loves or hates, and I loved it.

A major UNESCO World Heritage site, it’s a busy jumble of dark corners and nearly 10,000 alleyways. Most of the alleys are chaotic by day, and almost deathly quiet at night. There are  no in-betweens. But if you are charmed by this city of contrasts that is still stuck in time somewhere between the 13th and 15th centuries, this feeling about Fez will stay with you forever like an image from a fairytale.

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Tom Cruise stayed at the Hotel Selman in Marrakech
So last year in Morocco, living a #Travelife, there we were on my birthday, celebrating with a little R&R in a beautiful private riad on the grounds of the Selman Hotel in Marrakech, after almost every one of my 35 friends had returned home from close to two weeks of living a #Travelife all over Morocco.

We’d taken this beautiful private riad at the Selman that supposedly was also occupied by Tom Cruise for something like three weeks, during the filming of Mission Impossible 5.

So it was known as the Tom Cruise villa until it became known as the Travelife villa…

We even had the same butler team that was assigned to Tom Cruise for his stay — and weren’t they just excellent. Most luxury private riads come with a full-time personal butler, and I’ve been lucky with my private butlers in Morocco so far, as they’ve all been wonderful and ever so professional.

But the Tom Cruise team of butlers at the Selman wins hands down. Better than any butler team I’ve had so far.

When we checked in, I invited some friends over to our riad for some champagne before dinner, so I called the butler and said: “Can you please prepare the house as I’m having some friends over?“

That’s my butler, waiting for the guests to arrive at the entrance to our private riad…

Just like that.

And then I went over to the gazebo at the other end of my private garden with a pot of mint tea to read a book on interior design in Lebanon and try and get better WiFi on my iPad as the signal seemed better in the private garden.

Meanwhile, while I was relaxing, my butler was busy at work.

Out came the candles all over the house, the lanterns by the swimming pool, the champagne and even a lovely multi-tiered platter of sweets.

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Like clockwork, and ever so silently that I was completely oblivious to preparations.

When I looked up, everything was ready. So that when my friends came over to pop the champagne bottle with me, everything looked positively magical.

The gazebo at the end of my private garden at the Hotel Selman

Everyone oohed and aahed over this riad.

The butlers did dozens of things like this for me during our stay, to make the whole experience seamless and quite unforgettable.

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And when it was time to go home, they packed every breakable object I’d bought in Morocco in bubble wrap — and I did buy quite a lot of breakable stuff — so that every single thing made it back home without a scratch.


All I did was lay everything out in one of the corridors of the villa along with two empty suitcases, and everything was ready by the time I checked out.

This private riad of the Selman is certainly the most beautiful place I’d stayed in for 2015, as well as among the most beautiful private riads I’d stayed in in Morocco — and that’s saying a lot as I’ve stayed almost everywhere nice by now.

I’ve stayed in most of Morocco’s loveliest and most interesting places by now so I can write a guidebook on the best places to stay in five minutes. There are a handful, and each with its own strong points.

The Selman gets overall top points from me just because they have the best private riads I’ve seen so far. There’s enough space, enough decor, enough style and yet also enough calm so that the interiors are not just one explosion of color and lines.

And the the day after my birthday, Mr. Y said to me: “I’ve arranged a special breakfast today.“

Every day actually has a pretty special breakfast in my never-ending Travelife, if I have to tell the truth. And yes, I realise that I’m one of the luckiest people I know.

The day before, we’d had the full Moroccan breakfast via room service served in the grand pergola at the end of our private garden — and wasn’t that just scrumptious.

I had my favourite Moroccan eggs with meat and sauce, those delicious light pancakes with raw honey, and lots of argan oil sprinkled everywhere for anti-oxidants.

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Then, for effect, our butler served my favourite Moroccan mint tea sans sugar with lots of flourish. It sure makes drinking mint tea a whole lot better.

I’m sure he impressed Tom Cruise too with these special effects, in this very same lovely riad.

But that day, post-birthday, our butler picked us up with the golf cart and then he took us to a clearing right in front the main building. Here, he’d set up carpets all over the grass and a table heaping with breakfast goodies.

It was definitely the breakfast to impress.

Then, the main attraction arrived — and it wasn’t the food. We had prize-winning Arabian horses, who incidentally are ensconced in five-star horse lodgings nearby, perform a private show for us as we feasted on food literally fit for a king.

Talk about beautiful animals in a beautiful hotel.

What a wonderful post-birthday treat, and rather surreal but nice. Even for a never-ending Travelife.

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