BEYOND THE SOUKS

It has been a long held dream of mine to travel to Morocco; and more specifically I have always wanted to visit Marrakech so you can imagine my excitement when the opportunity presented itself. A number of my work colleagues visit Morocco on the regs and every single one of them recommended staying in a riad over a hotel as they’re considerably less expensive and a lot more central. But there are of course sooo many to choose from and I know all too well that picking the wrong place can spoil your entire trip if you’re not careful. Fortunately, that was not the case for me.

If you’ve been keeping up with my YouTube channel and Instagram, you’ll know that I travelled with a friend and during our trip we stayed at Riad Jona. I’d seen some good reviews on TripAdvisor and the photographs looked equally lovely so I decided that this would be a pretty darn good choice on the riad front.

They have a restaurant available within the riad which offers tagine and bread-making classes, although we unfortunately ran out of time to have a go ourselves. We did, however, have the opportunity to try some of their food during our stay. I had a vegetable tagine which was really tasty and not as spicy as I’d worked myself up for! My friend, who usually sticks to cheese paninis while travelling, enjoyed it so much that she’s been pestering me to try and recreate it since returning to the UK. I also tried an “apples crusty” which was a bit like apples and cinnamon baked in puff pastry. If I’m being totally honest I haven’t a clue what the ingredients were but it hit the spot and the ice cream and kiwi it was served with did a marvellous job of cooling me down that afternoon.

One particular highlight on the food-front was a delicious breakfast spread consisting of toast, jams, melon, yoghurt, cakes, juices and coffees which was the perfect way to start off the day. A word to the wise…. “You must learn to share your breakfast with the bees”; something I was told when I started flailing about like a mad woman as 4 bees tried to wangle their way into my pot of jam. During the summer, there’s a lot of bees around and naturally, they’re attracted to jam so if you want to get the most out of breakfast then you either have to learn to ignore them or pop a valium beforehand!

The one thing I kept spotting among the TripAdvisor reviews was the exceptionally pleasant manner of the staff at the riad and I have to agree. Everyone we met there was so genuine, chirpy and happy to help – I actually can’t recall having ever met such lovely staff and it really makes all the difference! Even before arriving I spoke with the riad owner with regards to my trip and he was very forthcoming helping us to arrange transfers from Menara airport and meals upon arrival. Everyone we spoke to thereafter was happy to help us arrange a lovely selection of activities during our stay from henna tattoos to mind-blowing excursions as well as point us in the right direction for anything we needed.

All in all, we had the most wonderful stay at Riad Jona – if you’re considering booking somewhere in Marrakech I would 100% recommend contacting them. It’s a very reasonable price, very central and the overall experience was such fun that you couldn’t possibly go wrong.  Visit www.riadjona.com for all the details.