We booked a taxi to take us into Casablanca yesterday and were quoted a quite reasonable price for the day. In the morning Mohammed one of the family who owns the campsite asked if a French couple could join us, we of course said yes. Then the other good shoe dropped- our price yesterday was for the taxi, so now we were paying half the price.
It turns out the French couple were Monsieur and Madame Poitiers. The first night in Asilah they had parked next to us and we had struck up a conversation. They are from Poitiers and as we had stopped there on the way down we could talk about their hometown. Denis had spent a year as a student in Worcester Massachusets which is my mothers hometown, so we also had that to talk about. Yesterday I saw them pull in here and gave them a wave, I told Ton that Mr and Mrs Poitiers had arrived and she knew immediately who I meant So we were really pleased when they turned out to be the French couple.
Our first stop was the Hassan II Mosque. It is the highlight of Casablanca for visitors. The Mosque is the third largest in Islam and can hold 25,000 worshipers inside and 80,000 on the square outside.
Morocco is known for its moderate approach to Islam, but this is the only Mosque in the country that non-Muslims can visit. It is open only in the morning for escorted tours.
The Mosque is modern having built from 1977-1983. As a result it has some interesting modern additions such as a sliding roof that is opened during Ramadan, and on Friday services to provide natural ventilation.
The Mosque is built on land reclaimed from the ocean. It is an impressive building in size and structure. The wooden balconies where the women attend service were also quite beautifully carved.
We finished the tour by going in the basement to visit the purification room. Before attending prayer Muslims must go thru a ritual wash to cleanse themselves which they prefer down here.
After the Mosque we headed over to the souk in the Medina. The souk is the old market in town and I knew Ton would love it. We started out with a lunch of Tagines again, I had chicken and Ton had fish which turned out to be fish meatballs. We ended up swapping plates as we each liked the others food better than our own.
The souk was great fun. We had no shopping in mind but did leave with a very small bag of pickled lemons. But we spent a very happy hour taking in the smells and sights and sounds of the market.
The old market was nice but was mostly aimed at tourists. Next to it was a street that was for the locals to shop in. It didn’t have the old columns and narrow passages of the souk, but it had more interesting things for sale.
After our taste of the market and seeing the restaurants in this part of town we wished we had waited to eat here, though there won’t be any camel meat in our future.
The city had been pretty quiet during our drive over in the morning. On the way home it had woken up and the traffic was quite a bit more intense. Our driver Yunus was able to navigate the crowded and free form traffic while having a spirited conversation with Denis in French. I would have been a nervous wreck.
Ton took some beautiful photos of the mosque today. What an experience you are both having. Love reading about your adventures each night before I go to sleep.
Thanks, her photos are the highlight of the blog.