Essaouira: elegant stop at the Heure Bleue Palais
Riads are in vogue these days!
After hitting Marrakech, the craze about riads has now reached Essaouira. So for some years now, you can see guest houses sprouting up all over the narrow streets of the old medina of ancient Mogador. Most of them have been opened by French people who have fallen in love with this white-colored city that has braved the ocean through the protection of ramparts constructed by a student of Vauban.
Robert Azoulay, who is a native of Essaouira, has become the lucky owner of one of the most beautiful and largest residences of the city, the ancient palace of Caïd Mbark Saïdi, erected at the site of a "fondouk" (a kind of caravanserai).
Meticulous restoration works
It required nearly three years of major works under the direction of young French architects, Karl Fournier and Olivier Marty, to turn this building, with its perfect proportions, into one of the most elegant hotels of charm in Morocco.
With its 33 rooms and suites spread over two floors around a central patio, the Heure Bleue Palais looks more like a large family house than a traditional hotel. The meticulous restoration works carried out by architects, their efforts to find furniture from the period or make imitations when originals were nonexistent, gives this building an indescribable charm.
Intercultural influences
The 15 rooms and 18 suites situated on the passageway surrounding the patio display Oriental, English, Portuguese and African decor paying tribute to the mixed-racial character of the beautiful Corsair city.
Meals are served in the Oriental salon with cedar-wood paneled walls. A magnificent Syrian chandelier gently illuminates the Ottoman-inspired fabrics of the wall seats. Cushions in golden, dark red and bronze green tones...An ideal setting to enjoy to the fullest the light and inventive cuisine of the talented chef. His cuisine enhances these lovely fish and Moroccan specialties (tagines and pastilla).
A cozy atmosphere
You can enjoy your breakfast on the patio that is lit with a thousand candles as evening falls on the city. When its time for the first drink, guests meet up again and comfortably sit in front of the black Moroccan marble fireplace in this very cozy English-style salon or sit on the panoramic terrace to admire the sunset over city roofs and the ocean.
Add to that a pool on the huge terrace with a spectacular view over city roofs, a spa covered with charcoal gray tadelakt, a billiard room, a private movie theater and you will understand why the Heure Bleue Palais has already become a popular address among connoisseurs of luxury passing through Essaouira.
