Marrakesh

Little in Marrakesh happens quietly. The souqs run on haggling and the hammer of metalworkers, the air thick with cumin, mint and cedar, while porters and mopeds thread the same lanes donkeys have used for centuries.

Step through an unmarked door, though, and the noise drops away: the riad, an inward-looking house built around a planted courtyard, is the city’s oldest trick, chaos outside and stillness within. Beyond the walls, the High Atlas rises white on the horizon, an afternoon’s drive from the palm groves at the city’s edge.