Advertisement
Published: February 4th 2008
The old Kasbah of Rabat
The view entering Rabat of the old kasbah from the new corniche along the Bouregreg River.Rabat and Casablanca got placed on our agenda not so much because we wanted to see them as much as they were in our way, their positions on the Atlantic making them unavoidable if we wanted to follow the coast road south. Both turned out to have their own interest (or are we simply interestable?) making them worth the few days we spent in each.
Rabat was the logical place to meet the coast on way west from Meknes, especially since we'd timed our arrival to coincide with a big storm blowing in off the Atlantic. We arrived ready to hunker down at the Hotel Splendide, picked from the Lonely Planet as a good compromise between its location in the downtown area and its proximity to the medina - plus the price, natch', which yielded a perfectly acceptable room for 190 dirham, though our bikes had to stay tarped out in the rain. We had a couple of wild and windy walks along the ocean cliffs (past the Oudayas Surf Club, where the King is a charter member) to see the aftermath of the storm, with giant breakers still crashing against the lighthouse and seawall.
Rabat further reinforced our
Atlantic lighthouse, Rabat
In the aftermath of the big Atlantic storm there were still huge waves breaking against the Rabat lighthouse and seawall. revelations from Fes and Rabat about how cosmopolitan and European these big Moroccan cities can be. Rabat was built nearly from scratch by the French to provide a colonial capital away from the intrigues and entrenched power structures of Fes and Casablanca, so it has its share of grand buildings and boulevards, but on nothing like the scale of its much bigger brother Casablanca to the south.
One of the must-sees in Rabat is the medieval Tour Hassan, an uncompleted 12th century minaret that would have been the tallest in world, which with the ruins of its mosque shares a site with the totally over-the-top 1980's era mausoleum of Hassan II and Mohammed V (the current king's father and grandfather), nearly comparable to the Taj Mahal in its grandeur and the intense level of ornamentation on every visible surface. Intimidated by the sober presence of equestrian guards in elaborate livery, I removed my hat and kept the camera in its case until I realized the tomb was thronged with Moroccan and European tourists snapping flash pictures with their camera phones, even of the royal sarcophagi visible from the raised viewing gallery; after that I just "went for it" like
Tour Hassan, Rabat
The uncompleted 12th century minaret across the plaza from the Hassan II mausoleum. the rest of them.
Alot of the balance of our 4 days in Rabat was spent shopping, trying to replace our pilfered bike parts and for more pedestrian items like socks and tee-shirts (we made our first visit to Marjane, the Moroccan Wal-Mart) as well as trying to find various museums, all the while dodging the downpours. The open-air Archaeological Museum, with its amazing Roman statuary and other artifacts from Volubilis, was somewhat leaky and dreary in the rain, though our visit was enlivened by the resident feline docent, a little tabby who in lieu of a guided tour provided copious purring and leg-rubbing for us at each display. The brand new Ville d'Artes contemporary arts complex in the same neighborhood, not mentioned in the Lonely Planet, was a nearly empty jewel save for an intriguing show of modern French and Moroccan painters. The new Jewelry Museum itself, inside the old kasbah walls on Rabat's waterfront, had an incredible and mostly well-displayed collection of Roman, Berber and Arabic gold and silver work spanning nearly two millenia, worth the visit just for its spectacular galleries.
While we failed to find Rabat's "American Bookstore", (moved? mis-ID'd in the LP?) we
Hassan II Mausoleum, Rabat
The elaborate tomb of Hassan II and Mhamed V, the father and grandfather of the current King of Morocco. easily located the English language bookseller's tiny stall exactly where the book had shown it near the train station, and had to restrain ourselves from an orgy of purchases from the rich collection of new and used paperbacks. During the time we were in Rabat I gobbled up Paul Bowles' grizzly kif-saturated story of post-war Tangiers, "Let the Rain Come Down", and Kate picked up story collections by Saul Bellow and Doris Lessing.
In Rabat we had some of the best food so far on this trip from a couple of places recommended by the LP, the La Mama Pizzeria (where "wood fired" was nore than just marketing hype) and Le Petite Beur-Dar Tagine where we had amazing traditional Moroccan food with soulful Berber lute and vocal accompaniment. Rabat was also where the art of the French patisserie got amped up to a whole new level, and Kate was beside herself trying to decide which cafe had the most succulent tarts and croissants for breakfast, which ones were better to visit for coffee in the afternoon, which were preferred for cookies to take out, etc., etc. My criteria for chossing cafes was much simpler: "who's got an unsecured wifi
Kate on the road to Casablanca
A swift ride down the coast from Rabat to Casablanca via Mohamedia network with good bandwidth?", and I actually found one - kind of a "men's place" that probably didn't even know they had an open network running - just around the corner from our hotel where I spent an inordinate amount of time during the crappy weather.
Once again, we were a bit paranoid from everything we'd heard about it as an urban "hellhole", so we decided to break the ride to Casablanca into two sections so as not to arrive at evening rush hour and to give us the possibility of a single night stopover after quick trips to the main Post Office and a travel agency. The ride south out of Rabat was a simple flat coastal run on an excellent highway through what seemed like an endless series of domestic beach resort towns.
At one point, scouting a coastal location for our picnic lunch, we turned off the main highway and headed down through affluent suburban neighborhoods and were poking around looking for a good beach access when we were waylaid by a very prosperous-looking middle-aged Moroccan man in an immaculate late-model Mercedes. In fluent English, he said "Are you looking for a way to the
Beautiful downtown Casablanca
Though it's got a BIT of Parisian flavor, you have to wonder: what were those French urban planners thinking? beach? Follow me!" and our intuition told us that for once this was a "guide" whose offer we should pick up on. He actually led us to his own house, right on the beach, where he and his wife were our engaging hosts for a couple of hour's very pleasant visit. Ahmed's English had been honed by a 4-year stint living in Alexandria, Virginia, and though now in "the private sector", he had served in D.C. as a high-level military attache to the Moroccan embassy with the equivalent rank of a one-star general in the Moroccan Air Force and had met the King on numerous occasions. Ahmed and his wife Aisha were obviously SO plugged-in that we really thought hard before refusing their gracious offer to spend the night in the otherwise-empty townhouse that they owned right next door, but made sure that we had their address and mobile # "just in case we needed something", and left with two loaves of just-baked fresh bread.
We had targeted Mohammedia, which appeared to be a beachy northern suburb of Casablanca, as a good place to spend the night, and after our leisurely visit with Ahmoud and his wife we were
Fountain, Place Mohamed V, Casablanca
It's not all a crush, clutter and cacaphony in Casablanca. glad we hadn't bitten off a longer ride. Just about 5PM, as we seemed to hit the center of Mohammedia, I got my first flat tire of the whole trip, and while I stopped to fix it Kate scoured Mohammedia for a place to stay. While on the street-corner working on my wheel I attracted the attention of Youssef, a young Moroccan who not only summoned the neighborhood "flat tire specialist" to help with the patch job but, when Kate returned empty-handed, got on his own bike and rode around town with us looking for a decent hotel that might be open in Mohammedia's off-season. After settling on the comfortable (but expensive) Hotel Sabah, we promised Youssef that we would come and eat dinner at the Big Bamboo Restaurant where he worked as a sous-chef.
While we had been looking forward to simple "chinese food" as a welcome change from tagines and cous-cous, we were totally unprepared for the nouveau-Asian haute cuisine at Big Bamboo, with its sophisticated French/Vietnamese/Thai menu, served under a genuine bamboo palapa with subtle lighting and authentic decor anchored by a 5-foot brass Buddha meditating on a raised dais. The lemongrass-infused dipping sauce served with
Hassan II Mosque, Casablanca
The largest mosque outside Saudi Arabia, with a 210m minaret and capable of holding 25,000 worshippers. our perfectly fried spring rools was especially memorable, and all the more impressive to know the native Thai ingredients were being sourced directly from Bangkok to Casablanca via Air France. We made sure the management knew that we were there due to Youssef, who reciprocated our appreciation with a dramatic flame-throwing exhibition at his wok station in the open kitchen. Just another great, totally serendipitous travel experience!
The quick cruise into Casablanca with a tailwind the next morning was a piece of cake until we did indeed hit the rush-hour traffic (or is it always like that?) Usually we can skirt around the urban jams on our bikes but this was a whole new level of cacaphony, congestion and diesel smoke, with a subtle sense of road rage simmering just below the surface - hey, just like a real city! We stuck to the coast, paralleling the rail lines feeding the industrial container port, and then turned into downtown, finding the Hotel Astrid without too much trouble. Though the management was a bit brisk, the central location was great, the room was reasonable at 300dh, and the free wifi in the lobby was a real plus.
Across the
Tiled fountain, Hassan II Mosque
One of many fountains in the complex, every element of the Hassan II mosque is executed on a grand scale, and every detail is over-the-top. street from Hotel Astrid was a digital printing shop, and after an hour's twiddling with the little photo program on my mobile computer I had a nice JPEG of Kate and me, overlayed with our various addresses, URLs and phone #s, that I emailed to the print shop. Within a day and for $20 they gave us back 200 color business cards that we can hand out to people we meet in lieu of the awkward scribbling-on-napkins routine usually required for exchanging contact info.
The other "city tasks" we had to do in Casablanca were only partially successful - Kate got ahold of the AMEX rep at the Schwartz travel agency who assured her we could indeed receive packages at their sister office in Marrakech, but my anticipated package at the Poste Restante (a forgotten bike light forwarded by Hamid from Villa Nora) was MIA.
While Casablanca definitely is a big crowded city - certainly those French urban planners could have done better than this? - and far-removed from the romantic Bogartian image portrayed by Hollywood, we made a special effort to find the large open green spaces that we knew must be there somewhere. We did find
Interior of Hassan II Mosque
This soaring, cathedral-like prayer space is capped by a retractable roof the size of a footbal pitch. them, particularly the Place Mohammed V and the Parc de la Ligue Arabe, but they didn't in any way "anchor" the city, being just a bit too far out of the center of downtown to effectively ameliorate Casablanca's relentless urban tumult. And unfortunately, while Casablanca's waterfront is undergoing some redevelopment (ie, a huge condo-marina complex apparently aimed at foreigners), it is mostly "all business" with its large container port and tank farms and without a corniche or even the complement of seaside amenities we saw in Rabat.
The closest Casablanca comes to a "seaside amenity" is the truly gi-normous Hassan II mosque, the largest outside Mecca and Medina, that was built in 1990 directly on the seacliffs south of the container port and that can supposedly accomodate 25,000 worshippers at once. Nominally celebrating the glories of Islam, it's actually a $800 million monument celebrating the wealth of the Moroccan royal family, who financed a third of it, and the gullibility of the Moroccan people, who picked up the tab - by subscription - for the rest. It's a must-see for tourists to Casablanca (actually, the ONLY mosque in Morocco open to non-Muslims), so we ponied-up the 15 bucks/person for
At Cafe Maure, Casablanca
A wonderful meal in a memorable environment. the English language tour, and were not disappointed. Built in 18 months by an army of Moroccan craftsmen on a 24/7 schedule - under the direction of a French architect - the mosque features a soaring, cathedral-like central prayer area with heated, see-through floors, Venetian-glass chandeliers (the only non-Moroccan materials), 50-ton titanium-clad main doors, a retractable carved cedar roof the size of a footbal pitch, and a 210 meter-tall minaret emitting a powerful Mecca-directed laser beam at night.
On our 3rd and last day in Casablanca, we had a great lunch in the otherwise rather pedestrian medina at the Sqala Cafe Maure restaurant, which turned out to be operated by the same group as the Big Bamboo where we'd had such a fabulous meal in Mohammedia. Located in a lush, water-filled garden built directly into the medina walls and filled with glamorous young people and power-lunching businessmen, the Maure got a thumbs-up from the Lonely Planet for good reason. Starting off with an intriguing variety of olives, the attentive English-speaking staff then brought us a scrumptious tapas-style array of Moroccan salads, followed by a succulent chicken tagine that was one of our best yet, and finishing with a skillfully
Ruined coastal kasbah
We had no idea what this ruin was on the coast road south of Casablanca, but it was too photogenic to pass up! produced latte. My discovery of free wifi in such a place, allowing us to exchange email between courses, seemed only logical. A fabulous wrap-up to our visit to Casablanca.
------------------------------------------------
Check our expanded gallery of travel photos at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/steve_hoge/collections/72157613626339376 And visit our home page at:
http://web.mac.com/steve_hoge
Advertisement
Tot: 0.22s; Tpl: 0.018s; cc: 18; qc: 77; dbt: 0.1042s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb
Andrea Kirkby
non-member comment
'Ruined kasbah'
The ruined kasbah photo looks to me like the island shrine of Sidi Abderrahmane - a pity you didn't have time to visit. It's quite frequented, though I'm not sure if the witchy old ladies are still sacrificing chickens there - and it's only reachable at low tide unless you use one of the rafts to get over there. Shrines of Muslim holy men are one of the things that makes Morocco very different from other Arab countries - and indeed the Moroccans are quite syncretic, since Muslims apparently still visit some of the tombs of eminent rabbis, as well. A saint is a saint is a saint, and his 'baraka' (blessing) is effective whatever religion he formally espoused.