Morocco to recharge body and soul

If the idea of a bit of pampering and indulgence sounds right up your street then turn your gaze towards Morocco, Africa’s Best Spa Destination 2016, and just three and a half hours from Bristol Airport.

Firstly, Morocco is warm and sunny almost all year round. The health benefits of this can’t be overstated, especially when you’re escaping from a grim British winter, exchanging grey clouds and freezing temperatures for brilliant blue skies and soul-warming sunshine. You can feel your mood lifting the moment you step off the plane.

Your spa options depend on where you choose to stay. Drop your bags somewhere like the Royal Mansour, possibly the most luxurious hotel in the country, and their three floor, award-winning spa is yours to enjoy whenever you wish. A tranquil palace, with ornate fountains and a fairy-tale white wrought-iron atrium, this is a place where you can achieve complete serenity while you are pampered from top to toe. 

La Mamounia is another luxurious Marrakech hotel, and has just won Africa’s Best Hotel Spa at the World Spa Awards. It promises a ‘journey into the senses’ and as you climb the marjorelle blue stairs and see the luxurious spa surroundings open before you, they certainly make good on their pledge. Softly lit, with traditional Moroccan tiling throughout, it’s here you can enjoy a wide range of treatments. There are two and a half square kilometres devoted entirely to making you feel good, including a gym, two hammams and an open air pool, with water that’s a delightful 26°C. 

Even if you feel that these hotels would stretch your budget too far you can enjoy their spas as a day visitor. And of course, many other hotels and riads in Morocco have their own spas too, so you can enjoy a treatment wherever you stay.  

Morocco is famous for the hammam, an exfoliating combination of body scrub, steam bath and massage that leaves you feeling cleaner than you’ve ever felt before. Most hotels offer a version, but if you want the authentic experience head out with a spare set of underwear to one of the hammams in the medina. Once inside you strip off to the aforementioned undies (men and women bathe separately), fill a bucket up with hot water and then cover your body with the famous black soap and let it soak into your pores. 

Once you feel it’s time to move on, use the water to clean off before the exfoliating begins. There is usually a steam room to really get the pores open, then the hammam staff will scrub you down using a kind of loofah glove, removing dead skin from every inch until you glow. Often places will cover you in coveted rhassoul clay from the Atlas Mountains for even healthier skin. Once you’re rinsed for the final time many places offer a massage option. Take it and you’ll feel you’re floating an inch off the floor when you leave. 

For more information on Morocco visit: www.muchmorocco.com