Escapes

Is there anything more enticing than seeing, behind a wall of white stone warmed by the sun, the tops of tall palm trees waving in the breeze? In a desert land, a walled garden holds out a special kind of promise, not just a promise of beauty but of rest and recovery. In fact, the word paradise itself finds its roots in the Old Persian for a place walled around. And this is what the designers at Maysan Doha LXR Hotels & Resorts have created. Rooting themselves in royal Qatari tradition in a walled compound set back from the busy seafront in the quiet hinterland beside the rolling green of Aspire Zone, they’ve created a personalised paradise of their own.

Maysan means a bright star and the décor reflects this luminous ideal. A fountained courtyard of elegant elongated proportions leads us under an archway through tall double doors and into the bright and welcoming lobby. We are greeted warmly by Lisa, the Duty Manager, with a fragrant lemon-scented towel, small cups of steaming Arabic coffee and a dish of fat black dates. As we sign in for our weekend retreat, we are immediately made to feel at home.

Our villa host greets us and loads our bags and ourselves onto a cream leather seated buggy, handing us a tall flute of one of Maysan’s signature drinks – a rosy draught of muddled strawberries and raspberries with bubbles – and off we go.