Beautiful Marrakech

There are some trips you take for the destination, and others that become about the people you meet along the way. Marrakech somehow became both.

I was lucky enough to travel to Morocco with my daughter, Chaise, joining a Greenhouse Interiors Style Retreat hosted by the wonderful Julia Green. I knew we were heading somewhere beautiful. I knew there would be incredible interiors, colour, textiles, food and design. What I didn’t expect was just how special the group of women travelling with us would become.

We came from everywhere — New Zealand, Singapore, Tamworth, Utah and beyond. Women with completely different lives and stories, brought together in Marrakech by a shared love of creativity, interiors, travel and adventure.

And somewhere amongst it all, Chaise met Charlie — who very quickly became her bestie. Watching their friendship unfold was one of those unexpected little gifts of travelling together. There is something wonderful about seeing your daughter discover a kindred spirit on the other side of the world.

Our Marrakech story began at the beautiful Riad Yasmine, hidden behind the walls of the medina. Stepping through those doors felt like entering another world — tiled courtyards, palms, beautiful Moroccan details and that extraordinary green-tiled pool that seems almost too perfect to be real.

Then there was the sensory overload of Marrakech itself.

The souks. The rugs. The ceramics. The baskets stacked impossibly high. The scent of spices and orange blossom. Dusty pink walls against brilliant blue skies. Tiny doorways opening into extraordinary spaces. Everywhere I looked there was another colour combination, texture or detail I wanted to remember.

As an artist and former interior designer, Morocco felt like being given permission to look again. To notice. To collect ideas without necessarily knowing where they might end up.

And then we left the city.

Out into the desert, where the visual noise suddenly disappeared and Morocco revealed an entirely different side of itself. The vastness, the silence, the earthy colours and the horizon stretching forever felt like such a contrast to the intensity of Marrakech.

There were conversations, laughter, long meals and those moments that happen on group trips when you realise you are no longer travelling with a collection of strangers.

You have become a group.

And what a group of women.

By the time we arrived at Beldi Country Club, with its gardens, olive trees, pools and beautiful faded terracotta tones, there was something wonderfully easy about being together. Beldi has that rare feeling of being both completely considered and completely relaxed — understated, earthy and effortlessly Moroccan.

Julia has an incredible eye for creating experiences around design, and travelling with Greenhouse Interiors meant we weren't simply looking at beautiful things. We were experiencing the layers behind them — the makers, the places, the materials, the colour and the culture that make Morocco such an endlessly inspiring destination.

For me, though, the greatest surprise was the connection.

Women from New Zealand to Singapore, Tamworth to Utah — and now, incredibly, Kenya. Wow.

Different ages, different backgrounds, different corners of the world, yet somehow Marrakech brought us all to the same table.

I went to Morocco expecting inspiration.

I came home with memories of dusty pink walls, desert skies, mint tea, tiles, textiles and beautiful rooms. I came home with a head full of ideas and probably far too many photographs.

But more importantly, I came home grateful for the women I met, the conversations we shared, the friendships that formed, and for having Chaise beside me through all of it.

Sometimes travel gives you exactly what you went looking for.

And sometimes, if you're very lucky, it gives you something you never knew you were looking for at all.

Marrakech, you were magic.