Morocco Tourists Attractions
Popular Moroccan Cities
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Marrakech
Agadir
Fes
Casablanca
Rabat
Tangier
Essaouir
Marrakech
• Marrakech – "Morocco City", as early
travelers called it – has always been
something of a pleasure city, a marketplace
where the southern tribesmen and Berber
villagers bring in their goods, spend their
money and find entertainment. For visitors
it's an enduring fantasy – a city of immense
beauty before a great shaft of mountains –
and immediately exciting. At the heart of it
all is a square, Djemaa El Fna, really no
more than an open space in the centre of
the city, but the stage for a long-established
ritual in which shifting circles of onlookers
gather round groups of acrobats, drummers,
pipe musicians, dancers, storytellers,
comedians and fairground acts.
Marrakech Continued
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The city's architectural
attractions are compelling
including: the immense, still
basins of the Agdal and Menara
gardens, the delicate Granadastyle carving of the Saadian
Tombs and, above all, the
Koutoubia Minaret, the most
perfect Islamic monument in
North Africa.
Agadir
Flanked by a strip of fertilizer factories,
a vast grain silo and sardine-canning
plants, SAFI is not the prettiest of
Moroccan towns. It does, however,
provide a glimpse of an active, modern
and working community and the old
Medina in its centre, walled and
turreted by the Portuguese, holds a
certain interest. The city – it merits the
name with a population of over 300,000
– also has a strong industrial-artisan
tradition, with a whole quarter devoted
to pottery workshops. These have a
virtual monopoly on the green, heavily
glazed roof tiles used on palaces and
mosques, as well as providing
Morocco's main pottery exports, in the
form of bowls, plates and garden pots.
Agadir Continued
• The main interest in Safi is in its
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Medina, the adjoining Dar El Bahar
fort, and the Colline des Potiers, the
potters' quarter on the hill northeast of
the Medina. Further out, on the
Oualidia road, is the main industrial
quarter and the new port.
South of Safi, the coast is heavily
polluted and industrialized, and for a
beach escape you'll want to head
north. Local buses #10 and #15 run to
Lalla Fatna and Cap Beddouza from
the Place de l'Indépendance. In
summer there are also local buses to
Souira Kedima.
Fes
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The most ancient of the
Imperial Capitals, and the most
complete medieval city of the
Arab world, FES is a place that
stimulates your senses, with
haunting and beautiful sounds,
infinite visual details and
unfiltered odors. More than any
other city in Morocco, it seems
to exist suspended in time
somewhere between the
Middle Ages and the modern
world. As with other Moroccan
cities, it has a French-built
Ville Nouvelle – familiar and
modern in appearance and
urban life – but a quarter or so
of Fes's 800,000 inhabitants
continue to live in the
extraordinary Medina-city of
Fes El Bali – which owes little
to the West besides its
electricity and its tourists.
Casablanca
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If the Hollywood image of 'Casablanca' is
important to you, be careful about visiting
Casablanca. No other city in Morocco is
further away from the romantic
Orientalism presented in the classical film
of 1942. Actually the film has never been
correct about the image presented of the
city that gave the film its name. The
Orient is found all over Morocco,
Casablanca is a modern city, and beautiful
in its own respect. The centre of
Casablanca is fairly impressive. It's
squeaky modern, with big, lively
boulevards, high, white, well-kept
buildings. And it's clean and efficient.
People visiting Casablanca as their first
city, could easily end up hating this place:
There are few things here confirming the
newcomers conception on the Orient. But
for people having visited other parts of
Morocco first, Casablanca is good!
Casablanca Continued
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The city is modern in a Moroccan way,
and an excellent example of Moroccans
capacity of taking charge of the future of
their country. But as soon as you step out
of the impressive centre of town, dark
clouds cover the realities of people here.
Extreme poverty and prostitution only to
be matched by Tangier is what you'll find
without even looking for it. No other place
in the country displays bigger differences
between the haves and the have-nots. If
anything in Casablanca should fit the
Casablanca of Bergman and Bogart, it
should be the old city. It's small, consisting
mainly of smaller houses, which all seem
to be from this century, and the alleyways
dominating in other old cities, are rarely
found here. There is a good market here,
but look around before you buy, shop
keepers here know their skills. Some
thousand people live here, and in one or
two spots, true beauty occurs.
Rabat
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Capital of the nation since
independence – and, before that,
from 1912 to 1956, of the French
Protectorate – RABAT is in many
ways the city you'd expect:
elegant in its spacious European
grid, slightly self-conscious in its
civilized modern ways, and, as an
administrative centre, a little bit
dull. If you arrive during Ramadan,
you'll find the main avenues and
boulevards an astonishing nightlong promenade – at other times,
it's hard to find a café open past
ten at night. Rabat, as they tell
you in Casa, is provincial.
Rabat Continued
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None of this makes any difference
to the considerable historic and
architectural interest in the city –
and across the estuary in Salé–
which includes some of the finest
and oldest Arab monuments in the
country, dating from the Almohad
and Merenid dynasties. You can
spend an enjoyable few days
looking round these, and out on
the local beaches, and there is a
major plus in that, unlike Fes or
Marrakesh, you can get round the
place quite happily without a
guide, and talk in cafés with
people who do not depend on
tourist money.
Tangier
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Today, Tangier attracts around
one million visitors every year. In
summer, it is one of the few
Moroccan towns that offers a
degree of relief from the heat.
Tangier also stands at cultural
and commercial cross-roads, and
is a stepping stone between
Europe and Africa, Tangier is the
gateway to Morocco. Tangier is
the main port of the ferries
coming from Europe, and almost
no other place in Morocco holds
more discos than Tangier. But
they are totally different from the
European ones. You should enter
these for the sake of the music,
but stay away if you're going for
company. Inside you find small
orchestras playing classical
Arabic music, and if you like this
kind of music, it's some of the
performers here are first class.
The music they play is rarely
heard outside North Africa.
Tangier Continued
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The women you meet at the discos, are
prostitutes. And they don't only stick to
discos and night clubs, you get
approached by them even in normal
restaurants. What surprises you, is their
bluntness, and the acceptance of ordinary
Moroccans around. But still Tangier is a
very nice city, close to the sea, a long
beach, an exotic old city. But sadly, the
hustlers here are so professional that
they're organized (actually true!). The
moment you come out of the quay area,
they run for you. And unlike hustlers in
any other place in Morocco, there is
nothing you can do to get rid of them. But
do remember, many of them are good
people, as long as you don't trust them too
much. So choose one of them, bargain a
price (1$/hour is maximum), and enjoy. If
an experience like this doesn't frighten
you, Morocco will be yours. Otherwise,
you should choose another port for
entering Morocco, and enter with air
plane.
Essaouira
• ESSAOUIRA is by popular acclaim
Morocco's most likeable resort: an
eighteenth-century town, enclosed by
medieval-looking battlements, facing
a cluster of rocky offshore islands,
and trailed by a vast expanse of
empty sands and dunes. Many of the
foreign tourists making their own
way to Essaouira, are drawn by the
wind, known locally as the alizee,
which in spring and summer can be a
bit remorseless for sunbathing but
creates much-sought-after waves for
surfing and windsurfing. In recent
years, the town has gained quite a
reputation in this respect, promoting
itself as "Wind City, Africa" and
hosting national and international
surfing contests.
Essaouira Continued
• The life of the resort, too, is easy
and uncomplicated, and very much
in the image of the youthful
Europeans and Marrakech's who
come here on holiday. Not that
Essaouira is exclusively a
backpackers' resort – these days it
attracts all kinds of independent
travelers, and increasing numbers
of packages, with new chain hotels
and villas springing up along the
corniche. But, as yet, it's very far
from spoilt, and remains a
thoroughly enjoyable base to rest
up after being in the cities, the Atlas
or the desert.
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