07 October, 2016
Located just a 10-minute taxi ride from Marrakech, the Beldi Hotel and Country Club screams out for a party. You'd start the night with sophisticated cocktails by the blush-pink lily pond, before sitting down to a dinner set in a conservatory that brims with greenery and belts out classical music. You'd dance along the pathways than snake through the rose garden (planted with no less than 15,000 rose bushes), cool off with a midnight swim and indulge in an invigorating hammam the next day.
This 15-acre estate was one of the settings for Poppy Delevingne's three-day wedding extravaganza back in 2014, and by god is the place romantic… If you're not Poppy Delevingne, however, you can still enjoy the best of Beldi's charms. The rooms are surprisingly reasonable (from £159), and all 28 of them are arranged as though part of a traditional Moroccan village. They are furnished from the local markets and feature heavy wooden doors, ornate chests and four-poster canopy beds - a dream to sink into after an evening spent dining at one of Beldi's three restaurants.
You don't have to spend the night though, and many visitors to Marrakech make day-trips to Beldi to escape from the hustle and bustle of the Medina. The estate is home to two streamlined pools surrounded by a terrace, a souk selling linen and Berber carpets, and a spa which offers a range of treatments based on the abundant rose petals at hand.
Designed in the beldi (traditional) style, there are 28 rooms built of earth, plaster, wood and iron. They are all furnished from local souks and feature heavy wooden doors, ornate chests and four-poster canopy beds.
A Moroccan spread of assorted breads, pancakes and cakes make of semolina, jams, cheeses and eggs made to order.
Le Palmier Fou, located in the hotel gardens, serves an international a la carte menu with a few regional specialties including tagine. In the summer months, dine on grilled prawns in the open-air poolside café Le Badya, which showcases a Moroccan-Mediterranean menu. In the winter, elegant Le Messraf is located in the riad and has beautiful views over the Atlas Mountains.
Yes - take your cocktail to the gardens or to the hotel's 'blue salon', which has fireplaces and plays jazz music before dinner.
Free wifi, two swimming pools, three restaurants, a souk, bar, spa, conservatory, tennis courts, an artisan workshop offering pottery classes, 15 acres of grounds filled with palms, olive and fruit trees, pampas grasses and 15,000 rose bushes.
It's a 15-minute hop by taxi to the medina, so it's not for those who want to be in the thick of it. Visitors can purchase a day pass for the estate's grounds.
You could wander the Beldi's ground's for hours, but if you want to get further afield then staff can arrange lakeside picnics at their kasbah in the Atlas Mountains.
