An Afternoon in Casablanca

After a bit of a rest back at the hotel after our morning walking tour, we walked down to the port and put some money on the Moroccan SIM card we’d picked up at the airport yesterday.

A walk then along the coastal ‘Boulevard’ des Almohades, footpath not even sealed, and we stopped at the old Portuguese 18th century fort, La Sqala, on the edge of the old medina, where we had a yummy lunch/afternoon tea of the most wonderful tiramisu and mint tea (from Meknés) for me and ice cream and coffee for MF in a delightful and peaceful garden setting (Cafe Maure). 

A long walk then through really interesting streets and past an incredibly huge slum area to the immense Hassan II mosque with the seas of the Atlantic Ocean pounding onto the ramparts. We visit this formally tomorrow when we start our tour but it was good to be there today so we have time to really absorb it - and take photos!!

A long walk back to the hotel to meet our fellow travellers at 6 pm for a pre-tour briefing. But the walk was fascinating, meandering through the old medina and we heard the evening call-to-prayer at the smaller mosques along the way. This will become a common sound over the next couple of weeks

After the meeting (our guide Khalid seems keen!) we walked briskly to Rick’s Cafe for our dinner date. This restaurant was opened in 2004 and was designed to recreate the bar made famous by Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in the movie classic Casablanca. Run by a former American diplomat, it has loads of atmosphere and serves good Moroccan and international food. We had a table right next to the piano and near the bar where we had a ‘bird’s eye view’ of all the action and the pianist. A GREAT night!