On a clear day you can see the northern coast of Morocco from the south of Spain, as I did earlier this summer from Marbella. The distance between the two countries (and continents) is only 13km. That was the closest I had ever been to Morocco until I took one of Ryanair’s newer flights from Dublin to Rabat, the capital of Morocco.
Rabat is too far west to see Spain from, or at least I didn’t see anything on the horizon, other than ocean. What you do see from pretty much anywhere you are in the sprawling city of Rabat is a number of landmark buildings that mark the city’s change and progress over centuries.
Foremost is the Mohammed VI tower, a skyscraper in a sprawling low-lying city that doesn’t really have many tall buildings. It’s 55 storeys and 250m high, and currently the third-highest building in all of Africa. Construction began in 2017. It’s shaped like a rocket, and can be seen from a 50km distance. It’s part hotel, part offices and part apartments.
Far more architecturally striking is the Grand Theatre of Rabat, a performing arts centre, that is a low, sleek, white futuristic building that looks astonishing from every angle. This was one of the late Zaha Hadid’s last projects before her death in 2016. In 2004 Iraqi-born Hadid was the first female architect to win the Pritzker Architecture Prize. Bizarrely, this incredible building is not yet open to the public, although it was completed in 2021. It’s the biggest theatre in Africa, but there is still nothing programmed.
RM Block
From modernity to the ancient: the 12th-century Hassan Tower. This red sandstone building was intended to be the minaret for an enormous mosque. But the project was never finished, and now only the tower remains, and more than 300 columns that stand nearby and support no roof.
In the old part of the city, the streets are still narrow, and the tourists are many. Mint tea is on offer at every corner. Stalls in the souks offer leather goods: folding stools, pouffes, shoes, belts, bags. There are also kilims, rugs, runners and carpets. It sounds fanciful, but I don’t think I see the same pattern twice anywhere, and I look at a lot of rugs. The variety of the patterns is seemingly endless.
I have come on a mission and a 25kg baggage allowance: to replace the rug on my landing. Morocco is justly famous for its beautiful textiles, and I am particularly drawn to Berber rugs, woven by the Berber people in north Africa. Many incorporate bright colours, while using traditional methods of weaving.
I have come prepared with measurements, and have even brought a measuring tape with me. If you are thinking of buying any kind of rug or carpet, it makes sense to know what space you want to put it in. The choices are so overwhelming that it makes it easier if you at least are clear about the dimensions.
As it happens, the flat white wool kilim with bright geometric patterns I choose is at least 30cm longer than will fit in my landing space. This is not a problem, I am told. If I can wait half an hour, or a little longer, the rug can be cut to size, and a fringe worked on the other end. The leftover piece is included. I have come armed with US dollars, but frankly euro or dirhams would have been better. No US banknotes issued before 2021 are acceptable, and all have to be in pristine condition. My kilim costs $200.
The kilim is wrapped so tightly I have plenty of room left in my suitcase. The following day I buy a second rug. This is a thick pile wool rug, with an undyed white background and splashes of geometric-shaped colours. You can tell that the rug is handmade by turning it over and looking at the colour weaving from the back. If it’s irregular, rather than uniform, it’s handmade. This rug costs $150. (My suitcase ends up weighing 17kg, so it’s possible to go to Morocco for a few days and bring back your own rugs, instead of shipping them.)
On one of our four days, we go on a day trip to Casablanca. This may not come as news to you, but it is news to me: not a single scene of the classic 1942 movie Casablanca was actually filmed in Morocco, let alone in Casablanca.
“All filmed in California!” our guide laughs, as we drive past a landmark corner building in Casablanca named Rick’s Cafe, which was opened in the 1990s by an American woman. No ghosts of Humphrey Bogart or Ingrid Bergman haunt these streets. The one thing that is true about Casablanca is that its name is still authentic. The white houses that give the city its name still endure. Pretty much every building I see there is painted white.
The actual Rick’s Cafe may have been fictional, but a real restaurant in Casablanca is Cabestan, right on the corniche on the sea. It marks its centenary next year; an achievement for any restaurant anywhere. It is a while before we can look at the menu, because the views of the ocean crashing on to the rocks beneath us are so commanding. It’s the kind of place you expect a Bond movie to have been filmed in.
Seafood is what you have in a restaurant overlooking the sea, and we have oysters, John Dory and calamari. It is all excellent, but it’s the extraordinary view that is most memorable.
The 12th-century Hassan mosque in Rabat was never completed, but one gigantic mosque-building project that was completed is the Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca. It was built between 1986 and 1993, on a scale and at a cost that is barely comprehensible. Our guide does not know how much it cost to build, but any cursory glance at a search engine shows the cost was about €585 million. At least some of the money was raised from Moroccan citizens, who donated a percentage of their salary toward the cost. Twelve million people donated in total.
It was built to hold 25,000 people, and wandering around inside its vast space is to feel extremely small, such is the scale. The floors are marble, the ceilings cedar, the chandeliers Venetian. When full of worshippers, it must be a truly intense experience.
For all the immense mosques, the 250m-high skyscraper and the Hadid Grand Theatre, the building that holds the most atmosphere is a bakery glimpsed in a side street in Casablanca. The door is open, and within, a man is baking flatbread in a wood-fired oven. The paddles to transfer the bread are longer than oars. In the dim light, it could be a Rembrandt painting. Many of these neighbourhood bakeries endure; portals to the past, and a tradition that continues.
Rosita Boland was a guest of the Moroccan National Tourist Office
