STOP 6 | Morocco: the leading Casablanca and the capital Rabat

Dedicated to Danilo and Roberta, but especially to little Riccardo, who is like an additional nephew to me. To the whole lovely family, in fact :)

 

Day 1: Arrival in Morocco

 

Once arrived at the hotel, I still had 3 hours to enjoy Casablanca alone, before meeting the group, so I walked through the medina of Casablanca, following instructions from the hotel clerk on where to buy souvenirs: I wanted to buy as much as possible, as with organized trips, you never know when you can get the next chance to buy something. Also, we would spend only 1 night in Casablanca, so I needed to get the most of it.

 

 

Once back, I met the group: we were 6 in total, with me being the first one to book, Yomi – a Nigerian/British woman to follow -, and a Swiss/British family who finalized the booking only 10 days prior. Thankfully I avoided the private tour of Morocco ☺.

I love travel with IntrepidTravel: I got to know this company 6+ years ago, where I had the opportunity to do my safari in Tanzania, a trip I will never forget. Intrepid is suitable for families, solo travelers as well as couples and lately they have created trips for young people only between 18 and 29 – unfortunately not for me. Brahim is our Moroccan guide, with Berber origins. While finalizing the documents check, I realized the group was drinking a beer, which made me proud:

 

 

Unfortunately I cannot drink alcohol, yet, due to the shamanic post-diet. For dinner we went to a relatively famous restaurant in the area, where I got the chance to try a chicken tagine, which was really tasty. We got the opportunity to know each other a little bit more.

 

Day 2: Hassan II Mosque, Rabat and Meknes

 

Casablanca is the biggest city of Morocco, yet it’s not the capital: it hosts about 8million people, but probably it is among the least rich cities in terms of cultural heritage, if compared to others. The biggest highlight – also suggested by my friend Hanane – was the Hassan II Mosque. This mosque was built by Hassan II, the former King and was built in less than 7 years, from 1986 to 1993, when it was inaugurated. About 10K people worked night and day to make it happen, since the King was sick and wanted really to see it finished. This mosque is currently the third biggest mosque worldwide, after Mecca and Medina, according to what the guide said, even though it seems not to be validated by Wikipedia.

 

 

It can host up to 25K people inside and 80K people outside. The interior is done with materials coming from Morocco, with the exception of the chandeliers, coming from Italy, and the white niche at the end of the aisle, made with Italian marble.

 

Muslims pray five times per day: Fajr (sunrise prayer), Dhuhr (noon prayer), Asr (afternoon prayer), Maghrib (sunset prayer), and Isha (night prayer) - source. And this Mosque call the believers all those times, during which the mosque is closed for tours/tourists. Despite it was built literally last century, it contains a mechanism to open the roof: usually the roof is opened even up to 5 times per day, making the mosque shine from natural light, not creating a hot environment being the marble cold; but obviously covid-19 changed such habits, so the roof it’s not open so often anymore.

 

 

Women pray on the balcony, as they are not allowed to stay with men (capacity for women is estimated to be probably around 20K): when the mosque is crowded – e.g. Ramadan – women are allowed to stay in the main floor, behind a fence placed behind a men’s area. Again, this makes me realize that all religions worldwide are absolutely not inclusive: how can we evolve as humans if we are not open to all the humans?

 

We got the chance to visit the ablution rooms as well (only the one for men, but they are identical). This made me ask the questions: if only some K of women are allowed, why they have identical ablution rooms? We may not know the answer, but the reality is that nowadays such ablution rooms are not really used a lot, only by people coming directly from work: many people prefer to wash theirselves at home and reach the Mosque ready to pray.

 

 

Ablutions rooms were really dried and the explanation given to us by the guide is that all the pillars are covered by Venetian plaster ("stucco veneziano"), and they naturally absorb humidity and avoid chandeliers to oxidate: really smart.

 

 

After visiting the Mosque we drove towards Rabat. Our local guide – Mohammed – gave us a tour after lunch, showing us so many things.

 

Rabat is the administrative capital of Morocco, probably less famous and for sure less bigger than Casablanca, it hosts all the municipal offices and it’s home to about 1M of people, on top of an additional 1M people living on Salé, which is the sister city in front of Casablanca, beyond the river Bou Regreg.

 

We started the tour visiting the Chellah, "a medieval fortified Muslim necropolis located in the metro area of Rabat", from where we could observe the Rabat Tower about to be open

After Chellah, we reached the Hassan Tower, built in an area on top on an unfinished mosque.

This tower dates back to 12^th century and at that moment of history, all the sides of the minaret were not equal with each other. This mosque was supposed to be the second biggest worldwide but was never finished because the dynasty started building it, fell and usually following dynasties do not complete unfinished work. The tower was intended to be the largest minaret in the world,[2] and the mosque, if completed, would have been the largest in the western Muslim world (source).

 

 

Close to such Mosque there is the Mausoleum of Mohammed V - the grandfather of Mohammed VI, actual king – who right in that spot gave the speech for MoroccoIndependence in 1956.

 

 

In front of the unfinished mosque we could appreciate the Grand Théâtre de Rabat, a structure designed and projected by a woman – Zaha Hadid – who apparently died of a heart attack aged 65 in 2016. The structure has the shape of a cobra head.

 

 

While driving back, the driver was so kind to stop in the highway so I could take my transition pic. You can see me below wearing the Fuerteventura headgear below a Casablanca street sign.

We finished the day reaching Meknes, which was Morocco capital in the 17^th century and we spent the night enjoying the view from the terrace of the hotel, given the 9pm curfew across all Morocco. I also took the chance to record a short video for my team in California.