From Roman ruins to royal palaces, Nick Hammond swaps the corniche of Casablanca for the seaside serenity of Rabat — where storks clack, hammams steam, and the Four Seasons turns mere mortals into sultans…
I keep expecting a toga-clad Charlton Heston to stride around the corner…
It’s that sort of place.
The Chellah Necropolis is a leafy, shady, sun-dappled, cat-splashed oasis, with resident storks clopping their beaks sleepily over a landscape pockmarked with the acne of time.
Chellah Necropolis, Rabat (photo by Women Travel Abroad, courtesy of Unsplash)
These ancient grounds were once a Roman town, latterly a Marinid burial ground and have been in use since the first millennia BC. Now they house ethereal outdoor concerts, wandering tourists and a contented flock of those storks, who roost noisily in the nearby marshes and build their haphazard Jenga nests of assorted sticks and twine atop old mausoleums.
If it sounds a bit dry and dusty – it is. But it’s also worth every second of your perambulations, such is its seeping grace and spirituality. I recommend the last evening rays of afternoon sunshine as a fine time to soak up the atmosphere.
Rabat – Morocco’s capital – is replete with such gardens of earthly delight.
It is more presentable than its other Moroccan cousins, being the seat of power and where the King resides. It’s a well-to-do seaside town which is clean, safe, picturesque – and infinitely interesting.
Of course, it’s easier to stroll around sleepily with wide-eyed, childlike wonder if you are currently living in a palace. Which I am.
The Four Seasons Rabat has to be seen to be believed. It really was a sultan’s palace, and while my harem consists of my wife and two daughters and I don’t have two Dirhams to rub together, I jump into the role with aplomb.
The hotel is currently in soft launch mode, so not only are we jammy so-and-so’s for getting in, but we are among the first to do so. I cannot speak highly enough of the place, from the colourful, sun-drenched, seaview rooms, to the restaurants; the pools; the staff. And the Hammam is simply breathtaking.
We are all indulged with treatments of various kinds; I am scrubbed mercilessly in an excruciating but uplifting exfoliation.
“Moroccans do this once a week,” my delightful masseuse says. “You haven’t exfoliated for many years, have you?” More like never, I think, but don’t tell her.
There are ice rooms, and steam rooms, and saunas, and hot and cold pools and saltwater baths, and a swimming pool you could build an Olympic Games around. And the four of us are the only ones who dip, drowse and drink mint tea on a wonderfully indulgent afternoon in between nibbling cashews and sweet treats and dreaming of Arabian Nights. The life of a Sultan, no less. Did you know, the Sultan’s wife was called a Sultana? A wonderful discovery, which results in Mrs Hammond being referred to as a dried grape for the remainder of the trip. It is remarkable how the Lord provides diversion for the worthy.
Verdello is an Italian restaurant so good, we dine on consecutive nights.
It is run with affable dictatorship by Sebastiano Spriveri, Senior Executive Chef, who has worked his magic around Four Seasons properties for years. He is charming company, generous to a tee and I discover, as I hand him a signed copy of my book, also a fellow cigar enthusiast.
The food here atop the Palace is impeccable. Minarets flash in the last rays of the evening sun as the Muezzin works his magic over the balmy air, and the familiar warmth of an Italian red washes the throat. An incredible aged steak of melting proportions, stuffed Rigatoni; ah, the senses recoil at the colour, sound, taste, the very sense of it all.
Nightcaps at the Bar Atlantique are firmly back in Rick’s Bar territory. Sultry, cocktail-strewn, heady.
If you can be there on Sunday, go all out for the brunch.
Now, brunch is not a term I am fond of. But if brunches were all like this, I would change my mind faster than you can say Sinbad the Sailor.
There are stations of global cuisine that will baffle your tiny mind. A cart of crushed ice, topped with oysters from just up the road, and fat prink prawns. Champagne is delivered to your table with a requisite ice bucket. A gentleman manning a shwarma stall slices dripping chicken into fluffy flatbreads; a sushi chef prepares the freshest of raw fish feasts before your very eyes. Chilled music lilts across a view of the various pools and the crashing waves of the ocean, and the day drifts like a rudderless Moroccan reedboat. Best of all, this brunch to end all brunches is fixed price and bottomless. Fill your boots, your pockets and your recently medina-bought leather bag as much as you like – it’s all in.
A wonderful way to curtail a wonder-filled trip to a wonder of a country. Four Seasons Rabat should find its way straight onto your bucket list. You couldn’t wish for a more exotic, enriching, relaxing, enchanting location just a three-hour flight away.
Simply superb.
For more information about Four Seasons Rabat, including details of offers and activities, please visit www.fourseasons.com.
Photos courtesy of Four Seasons (unless otherwise stated).
