by Kate Gowers

Created on: May 16, 2008

What kind of traveller are you? Do you like to spend your holiday budget on a luxury villa somewhere, with all the mod cons, or do you prefer more Spartan accommodation, on the basis that you're just renting somewhere to rest your head at night? Usually, I fall into the latter category - as much as I like luxury, I cannot justify spending large sums of money if I'm visiting a city in order to get out and about, and discover the culture and meet the people. However, I've just returned from Marrakech, and found a happy medium.

Riad Dar Sbihi is in the northern part of the Medina (old city) in Marrakech. A riad is a traditional Moroccan dwelling. It is laid out around a central courtyard, with the rooms communicating with the courtyard, but not with each other. The result of this design is that you step from a bustling (and dusty) and somewhat chaotic street into an oasis of green and calm...and birdsong. The courtyard is surrounded on all four sides, but the centre is open to the elements. This is easy to forget, such is the peace within. The style of decoration is typical and traditional Moroccan. There are large cedarwood wardrobes, huge painted doors, an ample quantity of coloured glass and the very Moroccan zellij tiling. Blue is a common colour throughout, which contrasts nicely with the greenery of the plants in the central courtyard. This riad has a ground floor, a balcony and the roof terrace. In addition, there is a small swimming pool, a hamman (Turkish bath), a couple of public rooms (we ate in one of them once). The website boasts rather charmingly, "Dar Sbihi proposes 6 rooms and 3 suites."

Riad Dar Sbihi has several room types, ranging from doubles and twins, through to small suites. All rooms have an en suite bathroom - ours (room 101) had an enormously deep bath, with a shower attachment that sadly didn't attach to the wall (there were no shower curtains in any case - something not entirely atypical outside of the UK, in my experience), but did deliver skin tingling pressure. I was completely incapable of keeping anything in the room dry. There is also a bidet, which I did not try out. None of the rooms are huge, though the room we were in (one of the smaller) had ample space for the two of us for three days. There is air-conditioning (very useful, as even if it's not ridiculously hot, the air conditioning gives you the option of shutting the doors and windows at night - rather important, when you remember that there is a mosque very near, and the

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