USP Stay at any one of Angsana’s six newly restored riads on a single block in the medina, just five minutes from the main square, and you can “spa” at any of the neighbouring properties. That’s almost a different spa for every day of the week.

AMBIENCE Boutique riad meets museum Moorish. These half a dozen riads are part of the Angsana’s group venture into North Africa and exemplify affordable luxury – the two best words in travel.

The spa at Riad Si Said (pronounced “sea-side”), for example, is simply three small rooms off one side of the courtyard - a dinky marble hammam, a reception room with sofa and fireplace and a single treatment room. While the spa at Bab Firdaus is a magnificent domed room set around a plunge pool.

It is reached by stooping through a small wooden door and has a massage table at either end of the floral shaped pool on which you can lie back and marvel at the wooden roof and intricate stone lattice work. It made me think that my dream massage would be on the piano nobile of the Palazzo Farnese in Rome looking up at the frescos.

EXPERIENCE As regular riad-goers will know, the calm of the traditional patio courtyard, away from the sputtering chaos of the alleyways, is peace and quiet personified.

For my early evening “spa transfer”, from Si Said around the corner to BarFir, I didn’t dare walk the short distance in the in-house bathing robe along a medina alley – though given some of the monkish medieval attire worn by some locals I probably wouldn’t have looked too out of place.

I was late by at least an hour for my hammam and Angsana signature massage but luckily the spa manager and Toey were very accommodating – perhaps they were used to clueless foreigners getting lost in the dense city centre. Toey had spent three months at Banyan Tree’s Spa Academy in Phuket, in her native Thailand. It showed. Her movements had the grace of a dancer.

The hammam was a more gentle experience than some of the fierce scratch ‘n’ scrubs dished out in the many public baths – black olive soap applied with a shower mitt, washed down with pails of lukewarm water.

Toey felt that my skin needed nourishing after the hammam and so swapped the signature oil (sweet basil, lemon etc) for a sesame oil used in Ayurvedic treatments. It was comfy enough having my face in the face cradle but it was much better gazing up at the superb interior of this chapel-like spa.

Suitably stretched and cleansed, warmed by ginger tea and in that fuzzy post-treatment haze, I accidentally trod barefoot on a floor spotlight which sent me hopping for the cool of the plunge pool. Although, not even hobbling back to Si Said in the warm dusk air could break the sense of “dropped gear” calm.

FOOD AND DRINK Espresso cups of warm ginger tea and sliced kiwi fruit served after treatments. The Si Said has an excellent all-day dining menu featuring Moroccan and Thai specials served wherever you wish in the riad – rooftop, courtyard or room. The riads are not licenced to sell alcohol which, once we’d come to terms with it, contributed to an ultra healthy trip.

Personalised cookery courses can be organised that include a trip to the souk market to buy ingredients for various tagines. We made a lamb tagine with dried apricots, prunes and roasted almonds and a chicken tagine (the bird bought live from a cage) with artichokes, petis pois and preserved lemons. The final products are served for dinner at a candlelit table in the courtyard.

IN-CROWD It’s hard to say – we scarcely saw a soul. It was like having a riad to ourselves. The target market is smart travellers who like their comforts to come with character, escaping the sometimes stultifying limits of the white-sand resorts. The guest manager, Serge, was a bit peeved that BA flights were no longer bringing in Club Class passengers. But the EasyJetters who are pouring in instead will feel at home with the tangerine drapes that hang in the Si Said courtyard.

WALLET WATCH A sense of space and tailor-made attention at a sensible price: the signature Angsana treatment is about £65 for 90 minutes; £50 for one-hour fusion and ayurvedic treatments, and a 30-minute hammam black soap scrub is about £30.

NEED TO KNOW Angsana Riads Collection, Marrakesh, Morocco (+212 2443 8493; angsana.com)

E-mail: reservations-marrakech@angsana.com

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