Your Three-Day Stay, Curated by a Local Expert

The Marrakech I know and love — distilled into seventy-two hours, by Louis Devereux

LD

Louis Devereux

Owner, Riad Alena  ·  Marrakech

I put the word "local" in quotation marks because it still makes me smile when people call me one. I grew up between London and Marrakech, returning to this city every year of my life. About five years ago, I decided that returning wasn't enough. I wanted to stay. I renovated a riad, hired the best team I've ever worked with, and built Riad Alena, a boutique hotel. It’s a place where others can fall in love with this extraordinary city, just as I have.

Three days is not very long. But it is long enough — if you do it right — to leave Marrakech feeling like you've genuinely touched it, not just photographed it. What follows is the itinerary I’d give to my closest friends: the lunches, the dinners, the detours, and the experiences that make a stay here truly unforgettable.

Day One

Getting Under the Skin of the Medina

8:30 AM

Breakfast on the Rooftop at Alena

Included in your stay

Start every morning the right way. Abla, our head chef, will have the terrace laid with fresh Moroccan bread, honey, argan oil, msemen, eggs cooked your way, and squeezed orange juice. The Atlas Mountains are on one horizon, the Bacha Palace gardens on the other. Take your time. This is not a city that rewards rushing.

10:00 AM

Private Medina Tour — Tailored to You

Expert multilingual guide · book via our concierge

This is the centrepiece of Day One and the best investment you can make in your stay. Our guides are multilingual and deeply knowledgeable. They listen. Before you set off, tell them what draws you: the architecture of a 14th-century medersa, the hidden tanneries and dye pits, or the specific souk where the best leatherwork lives. The tour is entirely yours.

For history and architecture lovers, expect the Medersa Ben Youssef, the Mouassine Fountain, the Musée de Marrakech, and the tucked-away Le Jardin Secret. For shoppers, your guide will lead you to artisans worth knowing — where the prices are honest and the craft is real.

1:00 PM

Lunch at Nomad

Restaurant · Derb Aajane, Rahba Kedima

After a morning on your feet, Nomad is the perfect landing. Set over two floors with a rooftop terrace overlooking the spice market square of Rahba Kedima, it serves a brilliant modern take on Moroccan cuisine. Think lamb briouats, chargrilled vegetables with chermoula, and the best spiced carrot salad in the city. Book ahead. It fills up fast, and for very good reason.

3:00 PM

Shopping the Souks — for Real This Time

Medina · with or without your guide

Armed with the knowledge from the morning, the souks make a different kind of sense in the afternoon. You know where to go and — more importantly — where not to. The leather souk, the carpet souk, the metalwork quarter, and the textile stalls of Souk Sebbaghine with its brilliant coloured wool drying in the sun. If you want to keep your guide for the afternoon, they'll negotiate for you in Darija. If you prefer to go alone, you're ready.

Alena Tip

The best light for the tanneries at Chouara falls between 10 AM and noon. If you want to photograph them properly, factor this into your morning tour timing. Ask Souliamane to arrange access to a rooftop terrace overlooking them. The view from above is something else entirely.

8:00 PM

Dinner at Plus 61

Restaurant · Guéliz

The best Australian-Moroccan fusion restaurant you never knew you needed. Plus 61 — Australia's international dialing code — is run by an Aussie-Moroccan team who have built something genuinely exciting in Guéliz. The food is bold, beautifully plated, and completely unlike anything else you'll eat in Marrakech. Book the chef's table if it's available. The cocktail list is excellent. This is a proper night out.

10:30 PM

Dance at Comptoir Darna

Bar & Nightclub · Avenue Echouhada

Marrakech's most iconic night — and the best way to end Day One. Comptoir Darna has been the city's premier destination for live music, belly dancing, and staying out far too late since 1999. The energy is unlike anywhere else: part restaurant, part theatre, part dance floor. Go late, stay later. Tomorrow's breakfast isn't until 8:30.

Day Two

Into the Mountains — and Back for Dinner

9:00 AM

Breakfast, then Head for the Atlas

Private driver · arranged by Alena

After a leisurely breakfast, your private driver collects you from the front door of Alena. Within 45 minutes, the city gives way to terracotta plains and then to extraordinary mountain landscape. You're in the foothills of the High Atlas.

10:30 AM

Visit a Traditional Amazigh Family Home

Cultural experience · Imlil Valley or Ourika

The Amazigh — the indigenous Berber people of North Africa — have lived in these mountain villages for thousands of years. A visit to a traditional family home is one of the most humbling and genuinely moving experiences this part of the world offers. You'll be welcomed with mint tea, shown how the house is built and functions around the seasons, and gain insight into a way of life that is entirely different from the city below. This is not a performance — it's an invitation. Treat it with respect, and you'll leave feeling like you've understood something important.

12:30 PM

Hike in the Atlas Foothills

Walking · local guide recommended

The foothills around the Ourika Valley and the Imlil plateau offer walking routes for every level. From gentle riverside paths through Berber villages to more challenging ascents with views that stop you in your tracks. The air is clean, the paths are quiet, and the landscape is staggeringly beautiful. A local mountain guide is worth every dirham. They know the terrain, the shortcuts, the orchards, and the viewpoints.

"There's a moment on every Atlas hike — usually about forty minutes in — where Marrakech completely disappears. That silence is something people take home with them long after the trip."

4:30 PM

Back to Alena — Rest & Refresh

Your driver brings you back to Alena. The plunge pool is waiting. So is the fireplace saloon if the evening has turned cool. A massage can be arranged in the riad with a couple of hours' notice. There is no better way to unknot your mountain legs.

7:30 PM

Dinner on the Alena Rooftop

In-house · Abla's Moroccan feast · book in advance

Tonight, you don't go anywhere. Abla will have been cooking since mid-afternoon. Expect five Moroccan salads to start: zaalouk, taktouka, herb-dressed carrots, preserved lemon, and olive. Followed by a tagine slow-cooked on charcoal embers: lamb with prunes and almonds, chicken with preserved lemon and green olives, or a vegetable number of extraordinary depth. A dessert of warm honey cake or orange blossom pastilla to finish.

Eat it under the stars on the rooftop terrace, with the Atlas Mountains dark against the night sky and the sounds of the city drifting up from below. This — right here — is one of the best dinners in Marrakech.

Alena Tip

Tell us any dietary requirements or preferences when you book your Atlas day. Abla can prepare a packed lunch for the mountain if you'd prefer to eat up there rather than return to the city for a midday meal. It's a wonderful option.

Day Three

Golf, Good Lunches & a Send-Off at El Fenn

7:30 AM

Early Breakfast & Tee Time

Golf · private driver · multiple courses within 20 mins

Marrakech is one of the great undiscovered golf destinations in the world. Within a twenty-minute drive of Alena's front door, you have some spectacular courses. The Royal Golf Club (one of the oldest in Africa), Amelkis Golf Club, and the Samanah Country Club — each set against a backdrop of mountain and palm that you simply don't get anywhere in Europe. Souliamane will book your tee time, arrange your clubs if needed, and have a driver ready.

We even run a curated golf package for groups called The Alena Cup. With four to eight players, a private driver, in-riad massages, and a proper competition format with prizes. Ask us about it if you're travelling with other golfers.

1:00 PM

Lunch at La Famille or Maison Rieme

Restaurant · Medina

La Famille is a beautiful, plant-filled lunch spot just off Riad Zitoun El Jedid. It’s vegetarian, seasonal, and utterly charming. The kind of place you sit down at for an hour and look up to find three have passed. If you're after something with a little more theatre, Maison Rieme delivers a refined Moroccan dining experience in a setting that feels like eating inside a work of art. Both are within easy reach of the riad. Both are perfect for a long, unhurried post-golf lunch.

3:30 PM

Final Hours — Hammam or Last Souk Run

Your choice · Souliamane can arrange either

The last afternoon is yours entirely. A traditional hammam and kessa scrub is the most Marrakchi way to spend it. Ask us to book you into one of the city's great hammams, and you'll leave feeling completely renewed. Or, if there's a piece of pottery or a kilim you didn't quite pull the trigger on earlier in the week, this is your moment. The souks are quieter late afternoon, the light is golden, and the pressure is off.

7:30 PM

Farewell Dinner at El Fenn

Restaurant & Bar · two minutes from Alena

I may be biased — I manage the bar and restaurant there — but El Fenn is one of the finest places in Marrakech to end a stay. The rooftop bar at sunset is genuinely special, with views across the Medina rooftops towards the Koutoubia minaret. Dinner is exceptional: beautifully sourced Moroccan produce, a thoughtful wine list, and the kind of relaxed, confident service that my mother Vanessa established when she founded the hotel in 2002. It is, quite simply, one of the best nights out in the city.

Tell them you're staying at Alena. They know us well.

Alena Tip

El Fenn's rooftop fills up quickly in the evening. Ask Souliamane to make a reservation when you arrive at Alena. He'll sort the best table. The sundowner view from up there is one of my favourite moments in Marrakech.

Three days. Five restaurants. One mountain. A handful of souks. And a city that, if you let it, will rearrange your sense of what a holiday can be.

Every element of this itinerary can be arranged through Riad Alena — guides, drivers, tee times, restaurant reservations, hammam bookings, massages in the riad, and anything else you can think of. That's what Souliamane is for, and he is extraordinarily good at it.

If you have more than three days — and I sincerely recommend that you do — we can build out the itinerary further. A cooking class with Abla. A surf-skate session at Menara Park with the Skate to Create crew. A day trip to Essaouira. A longer Atlas hike. Marrakech rewards the time you give it.

We have four rooms. Book early. And when you arrive, the mint tea will be waiting.

Louis Devereux

Owner, Riad Alena*

Marrakechcontact@riadalena.com