Dar Ahlam Hotel

Morocco

From the dusty outskirts of Marrakech, it’s a four-hour journey in a 4x4 through cliffhugging Moroccan roads, climbing through the pink, copper and yellow tones of the Atlas Mountains and the pancake flat fringes on the doorstep of the Sahara desert to get to Dar Ahlam. No simple journey, but it all adds to the aura of absolute paradise when you eventually do arrive.

With just 13 suites and one villa, this 19th-century kashbah-cum-Relais & Châteaux property by a riverbed in the lush Skoura oasis, near Ouarzazate, brings new meaning to the phrase ‘all-inclusive’. It’s more living theatre than hotel – but with a superbly tasteful backdrop complete with sprawling fireplace-fitted rooms, hammam and fragrant garden. Three meals a day are served whenever you please (that means breakfast at 2pm, if you fancy it) and always in a different, ‘surprise’ location, away from other guests – so your own private table might pop up under the trees in the garden, or on a secluded terrace.

The fine Moroccan food, complemented by Zenatasourced wines, is well executed – and so are the activities, planned to your tastes by your personal concierge. Staff might take you out camel riding in the morning or, in the evening, to a historic fort where you’ll watch the sun slink below the horizon. They even have a luxury desert camp where you can spend a night, à deux. No detail has been overlooked, no matter how tiny; a very special place. AEM. Rooms (with meals and activities) from £521.