Tucked inside the Kasbah of the Udayas, two streets in from Bab Oudaia, a discreet doorway leads through the courtyard of a former palace and drops you into a small terraced garden. The grounds once served a 17th-century palace built for Moulay Ismail; what you walk through today, however, is French — laid out around 1915 by the Resident-General's gardeners, who interpreted the site in a Spanish-Moorish idiom of box parterres, citrus, cypresses and bougainvillea around a small pool.

The upper terrace is the formal half: clipped hedges, orange trees, a lily pond and a long bench against the rampart wall. Stone steps drop to the lower terrace, where the planting loosens — bougainvillea climbing the walls, cypresses giving vertical structure, a longer bench-line facing back up at the kasbah's walls and out toward the river. Resident cats are part of the cast. The whole garden is no more than half a hectare, but the bone structure (box hedges, terraces, the pool) is exactly what the French laid down a century ago.

Entry is free — the gardens share the Kasbah of the Udayas' open-access policy. The small Musée des Oudayas next door, in the same former palace, occasionally charges a modest ticket when open, but has been closed for restoration for long stretches in recent years. The garden opens from roughly 9:00 to 18:00 and is unlocked rather than gated; late afternoon is the obvious time to come, with Café Maure two minutes away for a tea afterwards.