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Ksar Char-Bagh is in the Palmeraie, a 15-minute drive from Marrakech city
centre. The terrain is dry, dusty and inhospitable, but new luxury 'private palace' hotels are springing from the sands, rather like the eponymous palm trees that litter the horizon. Built in just two years, Ksar Char-Bagh is the brainchild of Parisian Nicole Grandsire LeVillair and her husband, Patrick. The architecture has all the austerity and grandeur of Moorish tradition; the main courtyard, with its carefully sculpted rose-bushes and gently rippling water, is reminiscent of an ancient Persian garden.
In the white-marble restaurant with its enormous arched windows, chef Damien Durand (trained in France by both Joël Robuchon and Alain Ducasse) creates impeccable seafood dishes in a wholeheartedly French tradition. His food has raised the standard of cuisine in Marrakech to a new level. The 13 spacious suites - neutral shells with polished grey floors - are decorated with local and imported treasures: Moroccan candlesticks, Indonesian teak tables, hand-carved Syrian chairs, Iranian carpets. Perhaps the most seductive feature of the hotel (and seductive it must be at these prices) is the swimming pool: decadently long and protected by palm trees
full of swallows. Deep in the vaults of the hotel is the hammam, where Zora, the increasingly renowned masseuse, will sing to you (like it or not) as she practises her art.
WHEN TO GO
October, when Europe begins to cool but swimming pools are still a refreshing necessity in Morocco.
ROOM TO BOOK
The Apartment suite with its private swimming pool.
CONTACT
Ksar Char-Bagh, Palmeraie de Marrakech, Marrakech, Morocco (00 212 4432 9244; fax: 4432 9214; www.ksarcharbagh.com). Double suites from €550; apartment suite €850
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