After our week in Tunisia, we caught an early morning flight westward, across the breadth of Algeria (the largest country in Africa), landing in Casablanca, Morocco.
Casablanca has a reputation for being thin on sights. For many tourists it is known for “Rick’s Cafe Americain” from the 1942 movie Casablanca. Sadly, there never was a gin joint of that name in Casablanca; the current “Rick’s Cafe” only opened in 2004. (However they do play “As Time Goes By.” several times per night.) For Moroccans, Casablanca is also the home of the largest mosque in the country, the Hassan II Mosque, completed in 1993. Neither the Hollywood imitation nor the modern mosque had much appeal, so we spent our free afternoon checking out some of the architecture of downtown Casablanca.
The French protection/colonization of northern Africa left behind not only the language and delicious baguettes, but also 100 years of architectural innovation. In Algiers, the French tested the Haussmann style in the late 1800s before it swept over Paris (or so we were told), but in Casablanca the architecture evolved in the early 1900s from Neo-Moorish to an Art Deco style with a distinctly unique flavour, such that the city has been described as a “laboratory of urbanism”. We toured the downtown core with its green-tiled roofed administrative buildings and Art Deco facades, and we also popped into the not-so-interesting central market. We then returned to our hotel with a view over the park in front of the train station, Casa Voyageurs, to begin our North Morocco tour the next day.
See our Casablanca photos on Flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/100countries/albums/72177720326281411
