Riad Najiba

Opposite the Derb Cherkaoui gate into Rabat's Medina, Riad Najiba occupies a restored courtyard house on Rue Lalla Oum Kenabech, its zellige-tiled patio open to the sky above shared salons. Narrow lanes here run five minutes to the Kasbah of the Udayas and its ocean-facing gardens, a quiet base for travellers preferring the walled old town over Rabat's modern Agdal district.

Rooms keep carved plaster ceilings and cedar doors; a rooftop terrace catches the evening call to prayer from three nearby mosques. Staff arrange taxis to the train station, since cars cannot enter the medina's alleys.