When my wife and I decided to spend a week in Marrakech before Christmas, we booked the “Dar les Cigognes” due to the good reviews on the web. After seven wonderful, entertaining and relaxing days in this little boutique hotel in an immaculately restored historic riad, I can approve those excellent testimonials.
The rooms and the common areas feature the typical Moroccan Arts and Crafts style. If the weather permits breakfast and dinner is served on the roof top terrace, which provides distance views of the Atlas Mountains. From there you can also watch the storks that gave the hotel its name. They nest on the battlements of the royal palace opposite the hotel. In the basement of the building the hotel has its own Hammam. The little restaurant of the hotel serves a mix of French and Moroccan Cuisine of excellent quality.
The location of the hotel is conveniently close to the Medina and the souks, yet quite and secluded in the local neighborhood.
All these aspects contributed to our splendid time, but the main reason why I strongly recommend this place to any traveler who prefers the personal style and charm of a local boutique hotel over generic international business hotels or huge modern luxury hotels in Marrakech like the “La Mamounia” is the courtesy, friendship and warmth that all of the staff offered. Pierre the manager is very considerate and at the same time entertaining. He is not only very knowledgeable in regard to Marrakech its history and all sights one might be interested to visit, he also arranged every evening great restaurants, bars and clubs for us. Due to his very educated shopping recommendations I had to get an additional suitcase for our journey back to Berlin.
Further I can highly recommend the cooking class we had at the hotel’s restaurant. After we toured the local market for spices and produce, we learned how to cook five different traditional dishes and finally got them served for lunch at the roof top terrace. If you enjoy cooking this is definitely a fun way to take home some new skills and recopies.
Should we return to Marrakesh in the future, I can assure you that we will return to the Dar Les Cigognes.

I must say, they are very helpfull, I emailed them and there was immidiate response. We stayed here for two nights, and on the website it looks very nice. And it actually does, but when we arrived in our room we were dissapointed. Also there was a on- and off going of a (i don't know what it was!) machine, wich was loud and not very calming, and you could here the road outside. We did mention this to the manager but all the rooms were fully booked. Anyway, I think for this price, you can do soooo much better!

We can't recommend this beautiful riad enough. In a great location in the south Medina, close enough to the souks, yet far enough away to be able to enjoy the riad's relaxing vibes. Pierre, the riad manager, was absolutely charming from the first minute and really made our experience unforgettable. From recommending restaurants, to providing private tours around the markets he really did make the difference. The room was spectacular, as was the food. All in all we had a wonderful stay and would definently recommend this to anyone.

Booked through Mr and Mrs Smith and the descriptions are wholly accurate. We were spoilt from the start. A 15 min sit down with the General Manager over mint tea with a long list of recommended restaurants, sites, shops etc. Hammam, massage, dinner and a private cookery lesson booked. The room was amazing with fireplace and huge polished plaster bath, the hammam an experience you have to try but the setting for dinner was something else. A private dining room for two, beautifully furnished and decorated with a fire and chess board set up for a post meal game. Breakfast on the roof terrace overlooking the royal palace, the storks nests with the atlas mountains in the distance. Off around the markets where the General manager escorted us round the local markets showing us where they bought their produce and back to the kitchens to prepare our lunch. It's not the cheapest around but it is luxurious, peaceful ( no tv's! :) ) and despite being full, we only bumped into other guests 3 times!