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Published: July 23rd 2023
A quick glance out the window into daylight suggests that things aren’t quite as chaotic as they were last night. And it seems that the immutable rule of driving with your hand constantly on the horn only applies during non-daylight hours, which probably explains why we were eventually able to get some shuteye.
It seems much cooler here than in the oven that was Spain. I head cautiously out for a wander. This felt like a very intimidating place when we arrived last night, and my confidence isn’t helped by the hotel entrance … well actually that would be two entrances. One of them you just walk through like any normal door, but next to that there’s the red carpet entrance - it’s roped off at the sides with braid supported on gold posts in true Hollywood style. But it seems that if you want to come in that way you also need to go through a scanner, just like the ones at the airport. I’m struggling with this slightly, and it’s a bit hard to draw any conclusion other than that they suspect red carpet celebrities are more likely to be armed with rocket launchers and explosives than the
rest of us mere mortals, who can just wander casually in and out through the plebs entrance, no questions asked. And the other burning question is of course how they decide who should be treated as a celebrity, which would seem to be rather important for the safety of the guests and the staff. I’m now starting to wish we hadn’t paid in advance so we could go and stay somewhere else.
I wander along the waterfront through the very attractive Plaza Espana with its Spanish style buildings (which it turns out are actually German - not quite sure how that happened), tall palm trees and classical European style lamp posts. Then it’s on through a stone archway up into a whole different world - the ancient Medina - a seemingly endless maze of narrow alleyways between whitewashed buildings, and the shops and market of the kasbah. It’s more than a bit crowded in here and there’s no shortage of people wanting to sell me things - hats, tee shirts, silk, and one guy asked me if I wanted to buy a camel ... And of course there’s no shortage of entertainment, street musicians, and guys with snakes draped
around their necks and charming them out of baskets. They look like deadly cobras. The most deadly species in here however isn’t them, it’s the motorbike rider. These guys all seem to think they’re speeding along on the motorway rather than wending their way through the seething masses in narrow winding alleyways. And there are cats, lots of cats, and seemingly also lots of people feeding them and otherwise looking out for them, which is good to see.
The alleyways are all curved and narrow and you can’t see the sky. I wonder why they built them that way? Was it possibly to confuse potential invaders? I’m not a potential invader but it’s worked on me. I‘ve got no idea where I am. I eventually emerge out of the maze into an open square called Grand Socco where some guys in traditional costume are putting on a show - some are prancing around with imitation rifles to the accompaniment of others playing traditional musical instruments … although on closer inspection I’m now not overly sure that the rifles are imitation.
I head into the Kasbah Museum of Mediterranean Cultures. It’s housed in the very impressive early 18th century
Sharifian Palace which it seems has served multiple purposes over the journey, including a stint as the official residence of the Sultan of Morocco when he was staying in town. It includes all the usual Moorish palace offerings - characteristic arches, courtyards, fountains, and a large garden.
It seems that Tangier was heavily fortified at various stages in its history, and many of the walls are still substantially in tact. Next stop is what’s left of the very large multi-terraced main fort, complete with some massive cannons.
This all leads naturally into the city’s extraordinary history. It was apparently founded by the Phoenicians perhaps as early as the tenth century BC. The Portuguese were the first medieval colonial power to take an interest. They captured it in 1471, and hung around until 1661 when they handed it over to the British. Huh? That gift was apparently part of the dowry of the Portuguese Princess Catherine of Braganza on her marriage to King Charles II. That seems like a fairly hefty dowry …. although maybe not ... it seems the Portuguese removed everything that wasn’t nailed down before they left, which I suspect mightn’t have gone down all that
well with Charlie and his mates. The locals weren’t overly keen on the Brits being here, but no problem there; the colonialists eventually got sick of being attacked and just gave up and went home. But like the Portuguese before them they too made sure there wasn’t much left to take over by destroying most of the fortifications and other infrastructure before departing. And what was life like during the British period? Well there were only a couple of thousand people here at that stage, more than half of them British troops, and according to the ever-reliable’s interpretation of words of the governor of the time, “400 of them had suffered from gonorrhoea from “the same pretty whore””. That was one busy girl.
All the major powers wanted a piece of the action here due to its strategic location, and in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries every embassy and consulate in Morocco was located in Tangier. The French then started to take an interest, and in 1912 they managed to dupe the Sultan into effectively ceding them control of the whole country, including the two Spanish protectorates in the country’s far north and south. Things got really
interesting in 1923 when the Tangier International Zone was created under the administration of the French, Spanish and British. Spain occupied the city in 1940 on the same day the Germans marched into Paris, and they hung around until the end of the war when things reverted to their pre-war status. The International Zone was finally abolished in 1952 shortly before Morocco gained full independence from France in 1956.
The city seems to have enjoyed a slightly quirky reputation over the journey. In the 1940s and 50s it was, according to the ever-reliable, “a playground for eccentric millionaires, a meeting place for secret agents and a variety of crooks, and a Mecca for speculators and gamblers”. And it seems the Americans eventually got in on the act too, headquartering their North African spy operations here during World War II .… and later it became a haven for writers and musicians, among them Jack Kerouac, Tennessee Williams and the Rolling Stones.
We head out for dinner. Neither of us get what we order and what we do get is terrible … but there’s a dance troupe operating in the square next to the restaurant in front of a large
audience, so at least that’s entertaining. And if we’re worried we might have eaten too much, well all good there too; there’s a guy sitting on the footpath with a set of scales in front of him, and if we give him a few coins he’ll tell us what we weigh ….
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RENanDREW
Ren & Andrew
Africa!
We only had a day in Tangier and we both wished we could have spent another day or two. We'd already been in the country a while when we got there though...it would be a pretty full-on first introduction to Morocco, especially arriving at night. Looking forward to your further explorations :)