Les Deux Tours

Les Deux Tours takes its name from the two matching towers of raw brick that flank its wooden entrance gate in Marrakech's Palmeraie, linked overhead by a chain of iron. Beyond the gate, close to four hectares of garden are laid out like a small Andalusian village of paved paths and water basins, with forty-four rooms and suites set inside separate pavilions rather than one building, so reaching any room means crossing the garden itself. The hotel belongs to AKAN, a Moroccan collection that also includes La Villa des Orangers and El Fenn.

The house

The estate was laid out by the architect Charles Boccara as an Arab-Andalusian village, and its interiors work with a small vocabulary: zellige floors, arched doorways, vaulted ceilings, fabrics in muted tones. One detail returns across the whole property, window frames painted the same sage green, turning up in pavilions far apart from each other. A carved stucco cornice of arches and leaves runs beneath the ceiling of the main salon, and the same cornice, under the same lilac glass chandelier, appears again in the sitting room of one of the garden suites. A floor of emerald zellige is laid in herringbone, its grout lines pale against the tile; in one bedroom, carved wooden pilasters in a floral motif flank an arched bed alcove with a round mirror at its centre.

The rooms and suites

Forty-four rooms and suites run in six categories: a single room, ten classic rooms of about 25 m², thirteen junior suites of about 40, eight premium suites, seven pool suites of about 125 m² that come with either a private pool, heatable on request, or a hot tub, and five exceptional suites. The exceptional suites carry names of their own: Grand Bain, So Chic, Charles Boccara, Large Family and La Tour. Large Family sleeps six across three bedrooms and two bathrooms, and La Tour, the newest of the five, opened in April 2022 with three bedrooms, two of them set inside a private tower. Coffee in the rooms is a kettle and instant coffee, suites included.

The table

Four separate places handle the food and drink. La Pergola serves lunch outdoors by the pool, open to non-guests by reservation, built on seasonal vegetables and herbs from the property's own kitchen garden alongside tajines, pastilla and briouat. Le Salammbo takes over for dinner, on a terrace or inside a vaulted dining room, moving between Moroccan classics and French cooking. Yoshi Bar is a small wooden counter tucked into a corner of the terrace, named after the house cat, serving Japanese food in izakaya style; its dishes can be ordered from the other restaurants, in the garden or by the pool. The fourth is the bar and its salons, where cocktails are built on herbs, fruit and flowers from the same kitchen garden and drunk by the fireplace. From April to October a single table is also set each evening at the far end of the garden, lit by hundreds of candles reflected on a mirrored tabletop, with its own menu and a discreet butler.

The spa

Les Bains des Deux Tours offers massages and treatments around a traditional hammam with a hot plunge bath, its domes filtering light from above; some massages move outdoors into garden cabins, using argan oil and other products from the Atlas. An air-conditioned gym holds Technogym equipment, and in the garden, under the palms, a barber works mornings from Tuesday to Sunday.

The pool

The main pool is held at 28 degrees year round. A spa treatment includes pool access for the day, and non-guests can book A Day at the Palmeraie, a full day by the pool with lunch at La Pergola.

Who it suits

The pool and the garden are what the days here are built around, and the spa reaches beyond the guests: a treatment comes with pool access for the day, and a massage or a hammam can be booked without staying the night. Peacocks and tortoises share the grounds as part of the setting. It suits travelers who want distance from the noise of the medina while staying close to it, reached by taxi rather than on foot. The Large Family suite, which sleeps six, works for a family travelling together.

Good to know

About fifteen minutes from the medina by car, roughly eight kilometres east of it. Rooms are booked through the site, by phone or by email. La Pergola is open to non-guests at lunch, by reservation, and serves from 12.30pm to 4pm; Le Salammbo from 7.30pm to 10pm; Yoshi Bar from 12.30pm to 10pm, closed Mondays.