A Tour of Casablanca

Rather lovely sunset pic on our Royal Air Maroc flight from Gatwick to Casablanca…..

No drama flight, aircraft pretty full tho’…

Casablanca from the air…. Largest city in Morocco with a population of over four million. Pretty much the commercial capital of the country, although Rabat is the legal capital and home of King Mohammed VI…. His family – the Alawi Dynasty – have ruled the country since 1668: from 1912 it was briefly split into a French Protectorate and a Spanish Protectorate, but regained its independence in 1956 with some bloodshed but nothing like the conflict seen in Algeria.

You can just about see the gigantic Hassan II mosque in the bottom right hand corner.

With me being deaf, tour guides work best for us on a private basis and so we hired Sauvgnon and he did a great job showing us the main parts of the city over the course of our first morning.

Here he is with Margie at the entrance to the Old City or Medina.

We quickly discovered that while this part of Morocco may have been just a protectorate of France, rather than a colony, the French influence is vast: although most Moroccans speak ‘Moroccan Arabic’ as opposed to the official ‘Modern Standard Arabic’, French is effectively the Second Language and is widely used for business, diplomacy, and government. According to the 2004 census, nearly 69% of literate people can read and write French. Maybe 20% of the population speak Spanish, which is a legacy from the time when France and Spain held different parts of the Kingdom of Morocco as a Protectorate. The Moroccans are also trying to keep the ancient Berber languages alive: the Berbers were the indigeous population of this part of the world.

In practice we found relatively few folks speaking English and those that did outside the hotel seemed to lack confidence in their use of the language. Our school French was more useful and we got by pretty well using that and carefully chosen English words. Arabic of course is a complete mystery!

One of the most stunning sights in Casablanca is the Art Deco former Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, built in 1930 but following Moroccan independence it became a cultural centre and the religious centre that it had been as a diocese was moved to the Cathedral of Our Lady of Lourdes in Tangier. I hope my pics can give you some idea of the highly original – for a cathedral – Art Deco style, with its Moroccan influences.

The first pic is taken from the splendid Arab League Park a large oasis right in the centre of Casablanca. Unfortunately we could not look inside the cathedral because the interior is presently being refurbished.

One of the most interesting aspects of Casablanca for us has been the charming architectural mix of French and Moroccan influences, mainly in the government buildings of varying descriptions. Here is a fine example!

Some of more modern buildings are not universally popular however: this one i think is a performing arts centre but we were told a very fine old building had been demolished to make way for it and as you can see it does not exactly enhance the view of the cathedral!

In order to build the aforesaid performing arts centre it was necessary to demolish a fine old fountain built in that charming mix of French and Moroccan styles.

So much fuss was made, a new fountain was built. Although elegant enough in itself we were told it was nothing like as beautiful as the original!

This is another government building, constructed by the French but with that elegent mix of French and Moroccan styles. There is a lovely courtyard within the building…

Unlike the Brits in Trafalgar Square the Moroccans have retained their sellers of pigeon food: much to the delight of Casablancan children!

This one is to give you an example of the Government’s efforts to retain some element of Berber Culture: the title of this building is in French, Standard Arabic and – shown here – the Berber Alphabet.

The Medina or Old City of Casablanca was profoundly interesting and unlike anything we have seen in Europe! The narrow crowded streets are packed with shops selling everything you can imagine. There was also a very creative line in graffiti, courtesy of the supporters of the two main rival Casablanca football teams! Here is a flavour….

One of the major tourist attractions in Casablanca is the Hassan II Mosque: it was completed in 1993 and is the second largest functioning mosque in Africa and the seventh largest in the world. A maximum of 105,000 worshippers can gather together for prayer: 25,000 inside the mosque hall and another 80,000 on the mosque’s outside ground.

A fascinating aspect of the Mosque’s construction is that it sits largely over the sea!