 |
||
|
||
 |
||
 |
 |
|
| Your traditional accommodations In Southern Morocco |
|
|||||
| Morocco possesses a treasure : its traditional settlements and above all the Riads, its ancient lodgings ; real gems hidden behind the anonymous walls of the medina. Their origin goes back far into times, but under their nowadays form, they are a temporal representation of the oriental paradise… |
  YESTERDAY…a palace between terraces and gardens. The Riad is a kind of lodging whose plans and arrangements are rigorously codified. It is before all a totally internalized space : the interior facades are the principal fronts while the exterior ones are only blind walls which leave nothing to guess of the extraordinary decorative wealth of the internal spaces. In order to protect the intimacy of the Riad, the entrance itself is twists and turns. It is a corridor in which the owner can receive foreigners without perturbing the private intimacy of the house. The courtyard - wast ed-dar (the house center) is always of a steady form, square or rectangular. we most often find a marble or zellige central fountain and all around it a geometrical garden structured by rectilinear paths. The plantation is more free : the only rule is the abundance of aromatic plants, medicinal or ornamental and the presence of orange, lemon, mandarin or palm trees which bring a happy leafy shade during the summer.  Note that the garden - or the courtyard - is the obliged passage to move from one room to an other, because they are not accessible to each other. It is the center of the domestic life, there where children play and where women work. From the four sides, it is surrounded by deep a little but large lodges. We get inside by a central gate surrounded by two windows of equal distances to enlighten the room. Sometimes on one level, the riad can have one, or rarely two floors, with or without a gallery, with or without a douiria, (private apartment of separate access). Always overshadowed by a white washed terrace of soil; a real protected women space where they spend very long hours together. The riads endlessly combine the same model variants and are above all distinguished by the wealth of their internal decorations. |
 Today
"… The new must". The growth of the new cities is conveyed by a loss of affection and a degradation of the traditional lodgings. They should have to wait the 60's and 70's so that artists, diplomats or famous personalities seduced by these abandoned jewels could restore these old houses in Tangier or in Marrakech. Some settled up definitely 
in, and others spend some months of the year, tasting the indescribable
pleasure of getting ; alone, with one's family or with one's friends in
an out of times house . Pushed by the increasing Tourist demands, the last years achieved renovations aimed more to transform these ancient riads into restaurants, guest houses, charming hotels or private residences. If, most of them, have been totally readjusted so that you would take profit from all the modern comfort (bathrooms in "tadelakt" for all the rooms, chimneys for the winter time…) others, more traditional, have mostly modified nothing privileging the discovery of some other different cultures. There are for all tastes - for all budgets - and above all there are not two identical Riads… |
| Life In The Riads | Life In The Home-Guests | Go To Discover Them |
