Review of Riad Khadija Spa 3*

I have stayed 4 nights at this small riyadh and I have 4 more to go. I paid in advance or else I would have moved somewhere else, outside the Medina. The staff here are superb, the free morning breakfast and afternoon snacks are delicious and complete. The rooms are spotless, the beds comfortable, and the atmosphere is perfect, except that there is a mosque with loud speakers just a few hundred feet away whose 5 am prayers last half an hour. So why would I wish I could move somewhere else? The stress of living here is just too much for my taste. No bus or taxi can get anywhere near. I have to walk at least one quarter mile through narrow (5 feet wide) cobblestone streets to reach the nearest place any taxi driver will come. (Many of them wisely refuse. ) The taxi then has to maneuver about another mile of similar, only slightly wider paved paths before reaching an actual road big enough for two cars to pass. These paths are all teeming with pedestrians (some in wheel chairs! ) push carts and donkey carts. Small shops line both sides of the narrow paths and people suddenly go in and out of them. Yet swarms of bikes, motorcycles and even taxis ram their way through at breakneck speed, brushing people and vehicles as they pass. I find it extremely stressful to walk or even to ride in a taxi under these conditions. Actually, these conditions exist all around the Medina now. The Medina was built for camels, donkeys, and pedestrians. Why they allow motor vehicles is beyond astonishing. I admit I have not yet seen even one accident, so it must not be as dangerous as it seems to me, but I cannot wait to go back home where I can walk out the front door and not feel that I am running a gauntlet in order to go anywhere. If I ever return to Marrakech, I will stay in a modern hotel with a pool and some space, in the Guelin neighborhood.