Our Palace

It is testimony to Alisdair Luxmoore and his co-visionaries that we felt at home at Rebali Riads almost immediately.

Our home-from-home is beautifully designed. Drawing upon traditional Moroccan architecture, the main body of the riad centres around a double-story atrium, roofed with a (retractable!) glazed dome to admit the glorious white-gold sunlight into the whole house. Downstairs the focus is on an airy open-plan kitchen/dining area, its cool, clean lines complemented by striking contemporary art work. The other side of the central stairway, lit by four small inset lanterns, is the living area, with the most comfortable sofas I have ever crashed out on (!) and a simple traditional fireplace.

The source of the glorious scent of Jasmine diffused throughout the riad when we arrived became apparent only later as a tiny bowl of burning oil on the central isle. This thoughtful, exotic touch was echoed in the flamboyant Hibiscus flowers that rested ceremonially on our pillows and adorned the copious white towels in the bathroom. Yep! This Arabian Princess is very happy indeed!

Luckily, however, just to ensure that our feet never quite leave the ground, there have been one or two discomforts we have taken a pride in overcoming.  Much of the time so far we have been without electricity or hot water. At times there has been no water at all! This matters little if you are, for those few hours, curled up on the sunny terrace reading, or adapting happily to a romantic candlelit dinner for two, but when I have just enthusiastically lathered my hair with shampoo at the end of the day and suddenly find myself standing in the shower in the dark with no means of rinsing off, even I, with my irrepressible optimism, have found it a challenge to pinpoint the silver lining.

Similarly, the pervasive damp throughout the house, clearly exacerbated by the wild storms leading up to our arrival, was not helped by the malfunction of the underfloor heating system, and both Lorenzo and I are still in the final throes of a particularly nasty cold/chest infection developed in our first few days here.

Still, there is nothing like a glich to enable one to call up the best, and most good-humoured in oneself - there is that silver-lining! - and equally to reveal the true calibre of the hotel team. And here they cannot be faulted! When there is no water at all, there is little they can do beyond apologising, but their apologies come with the reassuring sense that if there was anything that could be done, they would, without hesitation, be doing it. Similarly when the electricity cuts out we know that someone will be on the case immediately. And, when the hot-water system breaks down, thanks to their impeccable service, I feel more of a princess than ever, as large buckets of steaming water, boiled on their antiquated gas stove, are decanted into our copious bath-tub for a pre-dinner bathe..! Ahhhhh!