Casablanca – Part 1

After the better part of the day at sea, we finally arrived in mid-afternoon at Casablanca, Morocco. As we entered the port, we could make out the form of the two hundred metre high minaret atop Hassan ll Mosque. We also had company from fishermen returning from the sea with their catch. This guy clearly had some fish on board because the seagulls loved him.

Shortly after we tied up, we were off on our last Oceania tour, a quick one through the streets of Casablanca. We met our guide Redwan – that may not be the spelling – and off we went. We found the young men here, tall, thin, good looking and well dressed with especially nice footwear.

The first thing that impressed us about the city was the clutter of satellite dishes on every building. There is currently a huge regeneration project going on throughout the city, so not too far down the road, this city is going to look a lot different, especially along the water.

Our first stop was at the massive and fairly recently built (1993) Hassan ll Mosque. This mosque was open only to those of the Muslim faith, so we didn’t see inside, but we did learn that there can be 25 000 people praying inside and 75 000 in the courtyard outside.

This impressive edifice was built almost entirely on reclaimed land, as was obvious, once we saw it from the beach. The roof of the mosque slides open during prayer for a clear view of the heavens.

We didn’t get close enough to this guy to see in what condition the escargots were being sold, but we did find him to be a fairly unique street merchant.

As we stood admiring the mosque, the call to prayer came on over the public address system and there were a lot of Muslim families on their way for worship. They seemed to be having the same problem every family has – keeping the kids together.

As we drove along the beach we came upon Rick’s Café. Of course, the city is well known because of the classic Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman movie and the café figures prominently into the story. The romance of being in the city of this great movie is dulled significantly when you discover that the movie was shot in Hollywood.

Continuing on, we strolled down the beach past private beach clubs with their day-use cabanas and pools. Presently they were working hard to prepare for the coming beach season. You’d want a place with a pool here, since the beach is very rocky and not that clean.

Since we have two days at sea before our final port, I’ll once again break today’s entry into two parts, continuing with our exploration of Casablanca tomorrow.