Casablanca – Part 2

Leaving the beach, we next drove through Casablanca’s wealthy neighbourhood. Of course it was close to the water. The homes here were all estates with private compounds.

Driving along the congested streets, it was fun to people watch. These girls were having a very animated conversation, which quickly turned into dance.

The French style café below was frequented primarily by men watching women. Classic!

If you are a girl coming from school, you will be sporting one of these white jackets.

The deeper into the heart of the city you get, the more this place bears a very strong resemblance to Paris. Although French is still spoken here, there has been an effort to Arabize the nation and therefore step further away from their colonial French roots. However, if one wishes to study in university here, you need to speak French.

The buildings in UN Square are probably the best examples of French colonial architecture.

We took a brief stroll through a Medina, a classically wall protected area built with a warren maze of streets, intended originally to protect them from pirates. This area differed substantially from the Kasbah of Tangiers, as there was very little of the commerce shown below and the streets were car navigable.

I already suggested that traffic was crazy here and as usual, there were some crazy forms of transportation.

The tour ended with a visit to a shop selling items typical to Morocco. Our shopping was a bit frenzied, due to the vast array of goods and the short period of time we were given. But we prevailed!

Our tour was only 3 ½ hours but we came away with a pretty good feel for Casablanca.

Next day we were once again at sea, the highlight this day being our passage through the Strait of Gibraltar, shortly after we had crossed the Prime Meridian (0 degrees longitude). Being on the port side of the ship, we got a nice first look at Europe – the Spanish coast at Tarifa – and then watched as we passed the great rock shortly after 1:00 p.m.

For the last week or more we have seen almost no ship traffic, so in comparison we found the Strait of Gibraltar littered with ships, going all directions.

The closest we got to the Rock of Gibraltar was about 4 kilometres and is shown in the previous shot, looking at the end of the island. The best view of the “Sleeping Lady” – can you see her? – was from the east side with their water catchments and defensive caves.

After Gibraltar we pretty much lost sight of the Spanish coast as we headed north towards Barcelona. Our last day at sea was spent leisurely preparing for disembarkation. This port call will be quite unique in that everyone on the ship will leave, passengers and crew alike. It would be interesting to watch the transition to the new company, but that won’t happen.