As I already told you in my last post, I spent some days in Marrakech two weeks ago. It was just a little escape with the family for some days, but there was enough time to collect some impressions. I have never been in Africa before, so I did not really know what to expect, but I have to say I was positively surprised, especially with regard to their hospitality. Of course, you had a lot people that where really polite because they wanted to sell something, but in general I have to say that the people in Marrakech are very open and friendly. The same applies to the staff of our hotel in Marrakech. I know I know they are getting paid in order to be nice, but I had the feeling that this wasn´t only this kind of hospitality, but rather a genuinely belief. Something which really annoyed me on our journey, were the passport controls at the airport. I know that it is good to have high safety standards, especially with regard to the events that happened in the past, but it annoyed me because it was so inefficient. We arrived at the airport in Marrakech at 1 am, because our plane was delayed and then we waited another two hours in the passport queue. We also had to fill out little sheets with some data. I counted and except for two information all of this you could have collected when scanning the passport (f.e. passport number, expiring date), but you had to fill it out and then the security staff was tipping that into the computer. It took them 2 minutes for one person to go through security check! Just imagine that more than three planes land at the same time and all the people want to go through security check. And there is no queue to at least let children go first, my little sister was nearly sleeping on the floor and a woman next to us had a little baby on the arm! I mean…. Furthermore, I had to do the exact same thing when leaving Marrakech, which took me also forever and when you survived that only three security controls are waiting for you. So if you ever visit Marrakech I would suggest arriving at least 3 hours before take-off!

Okay, enough rambling from my side, actually I wanted to talk about the lovely hotel we had in Marrakech. We stayed at the 2 Ciels Boutique Hotel in Marrakech, which is not right in the Medina, which is something I would really recommend, especially if you want it to be quiet during the night. The Medina is the city centre and I think you have to either like it or you hate it, not from an architecture point of view, but rather from the amount of things you have to deal with. Within the medina, people are allowed to drive their motor-bike and you get passed by donkeys, furthermore you have all kinds of smells and at least for me it can get a bit to much. However, my mum for example really like it, but nevertheless I would not recommend booking a hotel their. The 2 Ciels Hotel is only a 20 minute walk from the “Le Jardin Majorelle”, which is really worth a visit and 25 minutes walk from the centre of the medina. And only ten minutes by car away from the airport. In the surrounding, you have a lot of restaurants and coffee shops, also there is a shopping centre not far from there, which has common shops like Zara or Carrefour. I would not recommend going there because the shops we have in Europe are more expensive in Marrakech. But I really liked the location of the hotel.

What I liked about the hotel:

• The rooms and interior of the hotel: They were amazing, especially from an interior point of view. They were a modern interpretation of the Moroccan style and I deeply fell in love with them (and with the whole Moroccan interior style in general). In general, the whole hotel took your breath away when it came to interior. I think I never stayed in a hotel that was as beautiful as this. The 1001 nights-feeling was real and you really felt like a princess. Whoever styled the hotel really knew what they were doing, since they corporated traditional Moroccan patterns into a more modern surrounding, which created a very unique style. Very very lovely!
• The staff: as I said above, they were really polite and in my opinion this wasn´t just for sales purposes, but rather because they believed in it. For example, some of them were learning German and as they realized that we speak German, they really tried to speak German with us and they told us stories from them and I really had the feeling that they were interested to also hear from us. Also my dad asked for a water bottle on the first day and after that they brought us water every day for everybody, which was really nice.
• The SkyBar and restaurant: On top of the hotel they had a rooftop bar, which was amazing in my opinion. Don’t be surprised at the prices of the cocktails in Marrakech. Alcohol is really expensive there! But you were able to watch the sunset from the rooftop bar and although he really annoyed me, it was a magical mood when the muezzin calls for prayer and you can see over the whole city. It was really nice to sit there and listen! And the hotel also had a beautiful restaurant, which is open for everybody. They offer Spanish food, which was really delicious and I can really recommend eating there. Unfortunately I always left my camera in the hotel room when we went for dinner, but I guarantee you it tastes really good. In particular the paella and the noodles with seafood were amazing.

 

What could be improved:

• The Pool Situation: This might not be something that can be easily improved, but the pool is right next to the restaurant, which is not really nice as a hotel guest, since you swim next to people that have nice dinner and other hand, the restaurant guests might not be happy about people swimming either. Especially with kids it can get really noisy and this is definitely the last thing you want to experience if you have a romantic dinner with your loved ones.

All in all I have to say that I really really liked the hotel. It was so beautifully made and no matter where you went you were able to spot some really nice details and places were somebody really put effort in, and this is what I really like to discover when I am travelling: all the spots and angles that were never seen before. And there were definitely a lot of those in our hotel, so I can really really recommend the 2Ciels Boutique Hotel in Marrakech. Staying with the good old star rating, I would give the hotel 4,7 out of 5 stars. You have to check it out when in Marrakech!