Days 346-352, 24-30 May '15, Situation Normal... Shopping, Eating, Strolling. During the first few days of our stay, another guest mentioned La Mamounia... Churchill's favourite hotel (well his favourite in Marrakech anyway). Earlier in the week we strolled there just for something to do as we'd read you could walk around the grounds. Non Madame! Only during the week, not on weekends. Please come back Monday-Friday. So a couple of days later we gave it another go, quite honestly expecting the guard fellow to say Non Madame - only on weekends. But 'lo and behold, in we went, the only condition being we left out dodgy plastic bag with our lunch container checked safely at the gate. Fair enough, didn't want to lower the tone of the place. Wow. Yikes and Yowser. Definitely NOR (Not Our Riad). Posh Bull Dogs everywhere (also pandas and penguins and rubber duckies... go figure). Many staff, hot and cold running staff in fact, leaping over one another in leap frog fashion to be able to open doors for us. We explored the grounds from one end to the other, enjoyed the water features and the gray, cool cloudy skies (had a cold-snap - only 28 degrees). Probably amused ourselves for a couple of hours. Didn't even discover the hotel shops until we were leaving as they're discreetly tucked away behind the guard hut. Honestly impossible to believe Marrakech is just beyond the walls of this grand old Art Deco dame from the 1920s. We are by nature inquisitive types so had a look at room rates once we got back to the riad. For a 10 night stay in La Mamounia's bog standard room... €3700... of course if you went up market and stayed in one of the stand-alone on-site riads... try €60,000. Phew... we thought the air in there was rare!