Les Jardins de la Medina - Pool

Les Jardins de la Médina stands at 21 Derb Chtouka in the Kasbah quarter of Marrakech, inside the old city walls and a fifteen-minute walk from Jemaa el-Fna. The building is a former princely residence, and the bones show: high cedar ceilings, tiled courtyards with fountains, thick walls that hold the Medina's noise at a comfortable distance. It operates now as a 36-room boutique hotel, family-owned, with one of the rare car-accessible entrances inside the Medina. The pool is the centrepiece, and for a Medina property its scale is unusual. Most riads manage a courtyard plunge pool at best. Here a proper heated swimming pool sits within three thousand square metres of garden: old palms, bitter orange trees, a tall jacaranda, exotic shrubs, and birdsong loud enough to register over conversation. The water stays warm year-round. Stone deck and wooden loungers line the edges under tree canopy, and a shallow section gives children space without disrupting the overall calm. The poolside bar serves cocktails through the afternoon. By midday the light filters through the palms and hits the surface in shifting patterns, and the density of the planting around the water creates the impression of swimming inside a walled forest rather than a city hotel. In summer misting sprays cool the restaurant terrace set just steps from the pool edge. Rooms split across four categories, from patio-facing standards to the Sultane suites with private terraces, fireplaces, and garden views. All are soundproofed and air-conditioned, decorated in Moorish style with zellige and carved wood. The restaurant serves light Mediterranean plates at lunch and Moroccan cooking in the evening: pastilla, tangia, seafood couscous under the cedar-beamed salon or on the garden terrace. A rooftop terrace opens panoramic views across the Medina rooftops. The spa offers hammam, steam room, and treatments. Les Jardins de la Médina is one of the few addresses inside the old city where a pool and its garden genuinely function as a destination rather than an afterthought between walls.