Rabat

Took a 3hr train ride from Fez to Rabat (stayed in Hotel Royal - great location, price and mgmt). The initial purpose of stopping in Rabat instead of going straight through to Marrakesh was to get a ¨rest¨from the dirt, mayhem and filth that we were supposed to experience in Fez - as we wrote in our previous blog, Fez was a great place and no ¨rest¨was required.

Rabat is the capital of Morocco and was a great stop for no other reason that it is complelety opposite from the medina and traditional way of life in Fez. Rabat is a very cosmopolitian city with wide boulevards, large government administration buildings, French cafes and most notably young women dressed looking the part of women in more liberal countires - tank tops, short skirts etc. Like Fez and the rest of Morocco, french is the dominant language spoken, as well as the language that most of the magazines and menus are written in. In addition, the cafes are also full of both men and women, inside and outside, which is in sharp contrast to the men only cafes in Fez. Much of what Rabat represents in large part is due to the very progressive thinking of the King.

We are definetly ¨getting by¨with our broken French, although Isabel certaintly is well beyond me when it comes to the pronounciation. When buying our tickets to Rabat I politely asked for (2) tickets to ¨Rabbit¨- got a great chuckle out of the ticket officer who spoke perfect english and replied back to me ¨Your French is Terrible¨, at least he was honest.

The medina in Rabat is not as old as Fez nor does it play the role in everyday life of the average person. The medina was very wide which made walking through the souqs very easy. Because Rabat is located on the coast the temperature is quite a bit cooler here, which meant the 29 degree temp felt a wee bit nippy - but a welcomed break from the very high 40s of Fez. As mentioned before we had plenty of rest in Fez so there was no need to catch up on sleep etc.....well thats what we thought. The only drawback with our hotel was the fact that our window was 50 feet from a mosque. If you are unfamiliar with Islam, (5) times a day Muslims are called to prayer and it happens that 3am is the first of the day - this meant that at 3am we where greeted with an extremely loud God is great..Thre is no god but Allah...Mohammed is His prophet...Come to prayer....Come to prayer....Come to prayer....Come to prayer....If you dont get our point - stick a loud speaker in your ear and yell at the top of your lungs....

Joking aside we were not lacking any sleep and enjoyed the sights and sounds of Rabat....even made our first visit to McDs after arriving on the first day - had myself a McArabia. The beach in Rabat and its twin city Sale where packed and at the moment there is a huge project going on to drench the banks of the Oued Bou Regreg to built up the beaches and construct large resorts.

Of the sights and sounds of Rabat the Mausoleeum of Mohammed V & Le Tour Hassan were the most impressive. The detail was great and there was no big tourist push hyping the attraction. Here both the present kings grandfather and father are laid to rest. There a very few if no touts in Rabat which makes for walking around very easy, although in fairness we have not encountered any problems with touts or harrasement in either Fez or Rabat - quite the opposite, Moroccans are extremely helpful and friendly.

Off to Marrakesh the capital of the south and the largest tourist drawing card................

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