Riad Laaroussa- Guest House

Instructions for arrival at the drop off to meet the valet went well. Thankfully, because finding it on our own after a long travel day would have been a challenge in the maze of alleys in the Medina. Upon arrival, we had a welcome drink and were taken to our room. The ONLY miss upon arrival is we were not given any welcome tour. We didn't know where the pool was, where breakfast was served (or what time), how to get to the restaurant, etc. Once we figured out all of those details, our stay was amazing. The Riad was stunning and clean. Our room was large and beautiful. The pool was a nice retreat after a long day touring the Medina. Rooftop for breakfast and nightcaps was amazing. Unfortunately, Fez did not bless us with a beautiful sunset but still a beautiful spot. MOST enjoyable part of our stay was the staff. Super friendly, happy and ready to accommodate our requests. Great team. Thank you!

This lovely quiet Riad is located a little bit inside the Fez Medina. We had taken a train to fez, and we arrived an hour late, but the driver provided by the Riad at our request was there when we arrived, and was very gracious about us being late. he drove us to the entrance of the Medina; no cars or motorcycles are allowed inside the Medina in Fez. The Riad sent a portal with a cart to take our luggage and guide us to the door. We were taken into a lovely garden courtyard and served mint tea and cookies as a greeting. The courtyard is full of trees and birds, singing happily and of course there is no roof. The woman who I presume is, the manager took us on a tour and ultimately we were led to a room which was called the terrace room. We had a small terrace with two chairs and a table, and our views of the Adobe connected buildings and the hills beyond. I enjoyed sitting out there in the morning and trying to befriend the birds. They provide a tea, kettle and instant coffee in the room and the other two places we stayed did not do that so it’s quite nice. That night we had dinner on the rooftop terrace with breathtaking views of the Hills beyond. We could see the arch shaped markings of two tombs in the distance on the hills. We opted for Moroccan salads and filled pastries for dinner that night. These were accompanied by the Morrocan bread that we saw everywhere in Morocco. and which is usually a bit dry for our tastes. Our server was Mustafaa, and he was wonderful. We just grew to love him. He knew a lot about Morocco and rock and history in the history of the Riad It almost became funny how we saw him. Every place we went in the Riad-The kitchen, the pool everywhere. And he ended up being a server at almost every breakfast we had there. The breakfast are included and consist of a basket of nice sweet breads and jams of different kinds, including strawberry, and then maybe apricot, and then maybe peach and honey, of course, honey. Each of us received the part of our own yogurt and there was granola on the table, and as well, one could request an omelette or eggs of their choosing. Of course, there was there, coffee and tea, too. One day we came home, hot and tired after taking a self-directed hike up to the tunes mentioned earlier. It was a bit challenging as one of us uses a cane to get around but we were A bit proud of ourselves. For having done it in 90 something degree heat. We are both women, and we’re outside in Medina by ourselves, and no one gave us any aggravation at all. I only say this, because sometimes women have different experiences. Anyhow, when we returned on that hot day, we went to the pool, and it is like an absolutely breathtaking oasis in the middle of Riad. The pool is surrounded by vegetation. Some of it is fruit bearing. Spouts put the water into the pool and it stayed pretty cool actually. It was wonderfully quiet and there were birds there tooo. Throughout our stay, the manager check to see that we were finding everything that we needed. Thanks to Mustafa who was the main person we actually interacted with regularly, we felt well cared for and not like he was just being nice because it was his job. The Riad arranged for a car to take us to the train station when we were going to leave to move onto our final destination, Tangiers,. Our driver was Omar. After we were settled in the car, he pointed out that We could be driven to Tangier and some thing like four hours. The train will take longer we knew, and we have not had the best experience with the extra long train trip to fez In a very hot car, although we did might meet some nice women there. Because of the cane person, one person had to carry all of our two bags of luggage plus one backpack up the stairs of the train station because there’s no elevator. We did see a porter, but we didn’t see any going up the steps. So the idea of hoping the same things back down to be on a hot train just was unappealing. So we took Omar up on his reasonably priced offer, and he drove us to Tangier on a very nice highway. He chatted to us as we went and pointed out things along the way that we would never otherwise have known about. For example, we saw trees where the bark was stripped off, halfway down, and without us even asking, he told us that those are cork trees, and that the government carefully regulates who can strip them and when because otherwise they will not be. Preserved. Omar is clearly proud of his country, and that pride translated into sharing information about it, and about its sites, and. We are so happy to have had him as our driver. He made sure that we were comfortable asking him to stop when we needed a break, and he took us to very new looking starts with gas stations and convenience, stores and cafes. I don’t know if you can request a particular driver, but if you can, I would request Omar for the reason I’m saying. I mean there he thought he had a fared for the train station and unexpectedly he’s driving seven or eight hours round-trip. Of course he’s compensated but still…

We had a very nice experience of this Riyadh. The room was large and clean, and the bathroom was enormous and had black soap in it, which was a pleasure. The pool area is a nice oasis after a hot day exploring the Medina. The staff was very helpful when we especially liked Mustafa, who served us most of our breakfast and was very informative about the Riyadh history and about the Medina and about the area and the history of fez n general. The breakfast on the terrorist were delicious. We cannot say enough about how accommodating everyone was. Especially grateful for Omar, the driver provided by the Riyadh to take us to the train station. We had arrived in fest by train from Marrakesh and the train was late and the train station was very hard to navigate for the one of us who walks with a cane. Omar told us that he could drive us to Tangiers for less time that it would take go by train. We looked around his clean cold car and thought about the alternative option of one of us having to carry our suitcases down the steps at the train station while the other popped on down by Kane. And we decided to take him up on it. And we are glad we did. It was a very nice highway. Omar was the best driver because he told us about what we were seeing for example explaining about the cork trees that we passed on the way and how harvesting cork is regulated. Things of that nature. He also took us to nice rest areas with cafés and convenience stores when we needed to stop.