Tours in Casablanca

Casablanca is the biggest Moroccan city and the least touristic. More than three million people work here, the port carries the country's trade, and its old medina is young by Moroccan standards. Most visitors arrive because the main international airport is here. That is a fair reason.

The Hassan II Mosque is the reason to stop. Finished in 1993, it stands on a platform built out over the Atlantic, and the minaret rises 210 m. The prayer hall holds twenty-five thousand people, with room for three times that on the courtyard outside. Non-Muslims may go in, which is rare here, but only on a timed guided tour.

The rest of the city is architecture rather than monuments, and it wants someone who can read it.

• Downtown — Art Deco and Mauresque blocks around Boulevard Mohammed V, thrown up in the 1920s and 1930s.
• Place Mohammed V — the administrative set piece: courthouse, clock tower, fountain, pigeons.
• Habous — a new medina from the 1930s built to look old, and the place for books and pastries.
• Mahkama du Pacha — a courthouse of carved cedar and zellij in Habous, open when official business allows.
• The old medina — modest and working, wedged between the port and the downtown squares.
• Ain Diab — the corniche, the sea pools and where the city spends its evening.
• Rick's Café — a real bar built to match the film, which was shot entirely in California.

Casablanca works better as a hinge than a stay. Rabat is under an hour by train and gives a kasbah above the river mouth, the ruins at Chellah and a minaret left unfinished. Marrakesh is three hours by rail and Fes about four, and both are sold as long private day trips from Casablanca.

Practical

• From the airport. Mohammed V is 30 km out, and a train runs from beneath the terminal to the two city stations in forty minutes. Cheaper than a taxi and usually quicker.
• Mosque visits. Tours run at set hours and stop around Friday prayers. Shoes come off, shoulders and knees stay covered, and the ticket desk is outside the gate.
• Weather. The Atlantic keeps the city mild and damp. Summer rarely passes the high twenties, winter mornings come with fog, and the sea wind is colder than the number suggests.
• Getting around. Two tram lines cross the centre on a flat fare and beat the traffic. Petit taxis are red, and the meter needs asking for.
• Dress. A business city: the streets are more formal than resort Morocco and less watchful than the old medinas.
• Eating. Lunch runs long from one and dinner starts around eight, and the stalls at the Marché Central cook what you point at.