Heure Bleue Palais

Heure Bleue Palais sits just inside the Portuguese-built ramparts of Essaouira, the windswept Atlantic port that has drawn painters, surfers and musicians for decades. Reopened in 2004 after a long reconstruction, the house is arranged around a covered central patio with a fountain, and the decor nods to the town's layered history with English colonial, Portuguese and Moroccan touches in different rooms.

The rooftop is the draw. A panoramic pool and terrace look across the flat white medina to the ocean and the Iles Purpuraires, and it is one of the few places in town to swim outdoors in comfort when the coastal wind is up. Downstairs there is a hammam, a small cinema room and a restaurant working a French-Moroccan line with a lot of the day's catch.

Everything in Essaouira is walkable from the door: the sardine harbour, the wood-carvers' workshops, the long beach where kitesurfers work the afternoon trade winds, and the ramparts themselves.