Atlantic Coast
ATLANTIC COAST
The Atlantic coast shows you a kaleidoscope of Morocco's different faces - bird reserves and huge ports, ancient fortress cities and modern resorts, Roman ruins and French Art Deco. And along the way, you'll see flamingos in coastal lagoons, and beautiful sandy beaches – a chance to surf, or swim, or just hang out at a beach bar.
By Andrea Kirby and Jacques Combeau
The Atlantic coast of Morocco starts with Tangier, the crossing point to Spain, and the entrance to the Mediterranean. In its prime, this was a fascinating city; an international zone, under its own government, full of expatriates, spies, artists and hangers-on, with grand hotels and luxurious cafés. That was the Tangier of the thirties, forties and fifties.
Now it's joined Morocco, and the full flush of international Tangier has given way to a slightly seedy sleaziness that has a quite different appeal – a rather faded old lady you know has had an interesting past!
Tangier is where Africa and Europe meet – right at the tip of Africa, on the Strait of Gibraltar. It has been, in its time, a Phoenician, Roman, Arab, and Spanish city – it even belonged to England for a few years in the seventeenth century (diariest Samuel Pepys, who was a member of the Tangier Commission at the time, didn't get on with the place).
'Roman bronzes and mosaics,
as well as fine Moroccan calligraphy,
silk, pottery, and carpets'
Tangier's kasbah fort is set on top of the cliff, in the north-east corner of the medina. The streets are narrow, canyon-like, the upper storeys of the houses sometimes jettied out above you. From the kasbah, you can look out to sea; you might even see the coast of Spain across the strait. Within the kasbah stands the Dar-el-Makhzen, a splendid though tiny palace that was sultan Moulay Hamid's home in exile (the French had asked him to leave Morocco proper). It now houses a museum of Moroccan art and crafts, like many of the country's fine old houses – the exhibits include Roman bronzes and mosaics, as well as fine Moroccan calligraphy, silk, pottery, and carpets.
Visit the Place de France and you'll be able to take your coffee in the Grand Café de Paris, a landmark of old Tangier where spies and artists, Moroccan nationalists and American expatriates, all used to hang out. In the faded Petit Socco ('little souk' in polyglot Spanish and French!) you'll find grand hotels fallen on hard times (rumour is that one serves as a brothel) and picturesque cafes.
There are downsides to Tangier. One is the number of hustlers about, and a high crime rate relative to the rest of the country; exercise care in wandering about after dark, and don't leave your wallet in your back pocket. Another is the beaches, which aren't the best in Morocco. If it's beach life you want, head down the Atlantic coast.
But on the positive side, Tangier has numerous odd sights stemming from its international past – besides the more Moroccan feel of the kasbah and medina. There's an Art Deco theatre built by the Spanish, an Anglican church with the Lord's Prayer written in Arabic, and the elegantly furnished American Legation.
The whole of the Atlantic coast was fought over by different nations throughout the centuries – for Spain and Portugal, forts on the coast enabled ships heading to the East or West Indies to replenish their supplies. So many of the coastal cities reflect this dual heritage, giving them a quite different feeling from the cities of the interior.
'high ramparts, good beaches, art galleries,
restored houses, an August art festival and a marina'
Asilah, 46 km south-west of Tangiers, was Portuguese for many years. It's becoming quite a bijou seaside resort, with high ramparts, good beaches, art galleries, restored houses, an August art festival and a marina. Throughout the year you can see houses decorated with mural paintings from the last festival – a touch of extra colour that makes the town unique.
Its past is rougher - it was a corsair port, a centre of piracy. The famous brigand Raissouni – the most successful of any number of pirates on this coast - holed up here in the early twentieth century to fight the king of Morocco's armies. Raissouni did well – he had Mauser smokeless rifles, while the Sultan only had muskets and black powder. He also made money from kidnapping unwary Westerners, and built a rather showy little palace here; he's said to have made wrongdoers jump from the windows to the rocks ninety feet below. And if piracy and palaces are not what you're after, there are some lovely beaches here.
Follow the coast a little further south to Larache, and you find yourself in a Spanish town – it was Spanish soldiers who built the citadel here, and many Spanish tourists still come here on holiday. If you're tired of couscous, you can get a good paella here. The twisting, turning streets of the old medina run down towards the sea; the house walls are painted in rich colours – dark green, blue, yellow, even red.
'house walls are painted in rich colours
– dark green, blue, yellow, even red'
From Larache, you can cross the estuary of the Oued Loukkos in a small ferry, as the locals do; it takes the little boats about five minutes to row across. Across the river are the ruins of Lixus, a Roman town; a basilica, an early church, and even the remains of factories where garum (fish gut sauce) was made – you can still see the vats where the sauce was fermented, carved in the bedrock. There's usually no one there, except perhaps a few local kids playing football; you can wander freely among the ruins, with extensive views over the estuary, and no one will disturb you.
Further south is the coastal lagoon of Moulay Bousselham – a nature reserve with an amazing wealth of bird life. There are flamingoes, storks, herons, and egrets; migrant birds, depending on the time of year.
Further north, on your way from Tangier, the countryside was bare and often stony, but from here on the roads are sheltered by trees, planted by the order of General Lyautey, head of the French Protectorate. And the landscape becomes more varied, with forests of cork oaks.
The next stop is the capital, Rabat, and its twin town Salé on the other side of the river Bou Regreg. Rabat was capital of Morocco once before – Al Mansour, the twelfth century king who defeated Alfonso VIII of Spain, made the city his capital and began building a huge mosque complex here – but its modern prominence only dates to the days of the French protectorate (1912-1956).
Al-Mansour's minaret and unfinished mosque are perhaps the most spectacular sight of the city. High on a plateau above the sea, interminable lines of columns mark out the aisles of the massive mosque, while the minaret seems strangely stubby; building stopped when Al-Mansour died in 1199. The huge size of the site, and open views, make it strangely melancholy. Here too you'll find the tomb of a much later sultan, Mohammed V – the king under whom Morocco gained its independence from France.
The medina is a seventeenth century town, complemented by the Kasbah Oudaia with its blue and white houses – blue securing the base of the ground floor, and white above. The Bab Oudaia gate dates from Al-Mansour's building campaign in 1195, with wonderful carved stone filigree like a lace doily covering the surface. Here, you can wander the streets and feel a thousand years distant from the honking traffic of the modern town.
Rabat is a thriving metropolis. But if you want to see a more peaceful place, walk south of the town for fifteen minutes to find Chellah. Here, on the site of the Roman town of Sala Colonia, the Merenids built their royal cemetery. Now, it's a half-overgrown garden, where Roman columns are mingled with tall minarets and whitewashed tombs, among olive and fig trees. And the real inheritors of the wealth of centuries are the storks, whose nests occupy the top of every tower.
'Roman columns are mingled with tall
minarets and whitewashed tombs,
among olive and fig trees'
Salé, opposite Rabat, was a pirate town – as late as 1898, the corsairs tried to capture Captain Joshua Slocum's ship the 'Spray'. While Rabat became a capital city, Salé remained a small town, with its own distinct character; it's a stronghold of Muslim spirituality, and has far fewer tourists. Small rowing boats ply the ferry trade across the Bou Regreg- an intriguing way to arrive in Salé.
Sultan Abu al-Hassan Ali built a great mosque and medersa (university) here in 1333, and though the mosque is off-limits to non-Muslims, the medersa can be visited. It's a marvellous work of delicate zellij tiles, ornamental plasterwork, and cedarwood carving, the equal of anything you'll see in Fez or Marrakesh. Some of the architecture is so delicate it seems almost cut out of paper or made of icing sugar. From the roof, there are views of old Rabat across the estuary.
From Rabat, it's a quick journey down the coast to Casablanca – bus, train, or drive yourself, it's pretty much the same route.
Casablanca shows a completely different side of Morocco – the French protectorate at its best, and the modern commercial life of the country. This is Morocco's largest city and its commercial centre, but as the tiny medina shows, it was no more than a small town before the French arrived. Scattered across the tree-lined boulevards of the city are art deco jewels; fine white façades with elegant curves, the 'mauresque' pseudo-Andalusian style of Place Mohammed V, and the imposing modernist lines of the cathedral of Sacré Coeur (now a cultural centre).
This city is probably the most westernised of Moroccan cities. Macdonalds and Pizza Hut, skyscrapers and nightclubs, form the urban landscape here – almost all the skyscrapers in pure, almost blinding white, so that the city seems to gleam in the sun. You'll see Moroccan women in miniskirts; locals on the trendy beaches are draped head to toe in designer labels. The Corniche, with its hotels and nightclubs feels utterly Western.
Yet directly opposite the Corniche you see a reminder of another, older Morocco - the shrine of Sidi Abderrahman on its little islet, only reachable when the tide goes out (unless you share a raft made of a truck tyre with one of the local kids). Tiny white houses cluster round the marabout shrine; women walk around the island in the water, hoping to be blessed with the gift of children, and sometimes sacrifice a chicken. Once a year, the moussem pilgrimage is accompanied by a fantasia – a cavalry charge - and the bangs of rifles fired into the air; the air is thick with smoke and the smell of gunpowder.
The same astonishing mixture of old and new characterises the enormous Hassan II mosque, built in 1993. It's the work of a French architect, Michel Pinseau, though in traditional style; and it's shiningly new, sparkling tiles and gleaming marble. It's massive, with room for a hundred thousand worshippers in the mosque and courtyard. And unusually for Morocco, it's open to non-Muslims (you'll have to take a guided tour, though). Yet around the mosque are sandy wastes, and small, poor buildings in dusty backstreets.
Casablanca even has a modern walled medina, the "quartier des Habous", built in the 1920s by French architect and readily adopted by the Moroccans. (Everything in Morocco has to be walled, with crenellations – medinas, marketplaces, graveyards, cities, neighbourhoods, gardens – it's as if at times Moroccans feel uncomfortable facing life outside the walls). White, arcaded streets lead from one souk to another, a vision of relaxation and elegance that's belied by the busy traffic and the bustle of the souks.
Keep heading down the coast, and 96 kilometres further south stands el Jadida, a Portuguese stronghold till the Moroccans took it over in the eighteenth century. The ramparts still stand, together with a huge Portuguese enclosed cistern; the shallow water reflects the arches of the vault, and every tiny noise echoes in the cool interior. Even the great mosque is Portuguese in origin, its minaret converted from a lighthouse.
Most of the year el Jadida is a laid back town. But in August, it becomes the centre for a huge festival, the moussem of Sidi Abdallah. There are impressive fantasias – the horsemen demonstrating incredible skills as they rear their horses; there are tents with cushions where you can lie down comfortably and drink sweet, sticky mint tea; there are scenes from the middle ages, like a wise donkey who will answer questions and tell your future by moving his forelegs forward or wiggling his ears, or the man who extracts teeth, and advertises with a plateful of 'references' from grateful customers.
'white and blue painted houses cluster
inside the raw red walls; the streets are still sleepy
and the beach still uncrowded,
despite the high surf and spotless sand'
15 kilometres away, further down the coast, is Azemmour, a little visited former Portuguese fort whose walls, perched on a cliff, overlook the steely blue waters of the Oum er-Rbia estuary. White and blue painted houses cluster inside the raw red walls; the streets are still sleepy and the beach still uncrowded, despite the high surf and spotless sand.
Navigate the old city and you'll find the synagogue, still open – on request – with the tomb of Rabbi Abraham Moul Niss; Jews still come back here for the moussem in August, and some Muslims also make pilgrimage to this holy man's tomb, just as they do to the marabouts. A rather different kind of pilgrimage is made by the many surfers and kitesurfers who enjoy the waves on the nearby beaches. From here on south you'll find some of the best waves in the country – and even when surf's up, the sun is usually shining.
Heading further south, you come to Safi, with its two castles and old city. The outskirts of the city are industrial – it's one of Morocco's big fishing ports. But besides sardines, it's a centre of the pottery trade. In the old city, shops are crowded with clashing colours of ceramic; bright yellow and red, dark blue, green and turquoise. While Fez has simple blue and white as its trademark, Safi is more exuberant, mixing elegantly calligraphic black painted lines with multiple colours to create it glowingly decorated work.
Just outside the walled city, the potters have their works in the Bab Chaaba district. Some are mechanised; others still make their pots in the traditional way. They look up, squelchy clay on their hands, from their foot-propelled wheels; you can hear the slap of clay being beaten, to take the air out of it. The dank smell of watered clay fills the air; kilns smoulder behind the workshops. Despite the tourist coaches which stop for an hour at the potteries, Safi is very much a working town with a real buzz of its own.
If you head further south, you'll find yourself very much back on the beaten tourist track at Agadir – a tourist resort laid out for the package tourist seeking sun, sea and sand, and with a very different vibe from el Jadida and Azemmour. The old city was destroyed in an earthquake in 1960 and it was rebuilt as a showcase of modernism – but alas, just the kind of modernism that's now being demolished elsewhere. Still, it has its attractions – notably the huge fishing port, with its great fish market where the sharp smell of fresh fish, the chill of ice, and the glistening greys and pinks of the scaly beasts laid out in iceboxes or on their slabs, combine to overwhelm the senses. And the long, sandy, curving beach is truly spectacular, though well populated – with big waves for surfers and soft sand for sunbathers.
But Agadir's real interest, unless you want a beach holiday of the most traditional style, is as a base for forays into the Atlas and Sahara. It's easy to book a guided trip in town, or rent a car and head off inland.
If you've seen Fez, Marrakesh and the Atlas – if you've camel trekked in the Sahara and seen the black tents of the nomads – Morocco's Atlantic coast will offer you a very different experience. Spanish and Portuguese castles, great modern cities and charming old forts, great surf and sandy beaches. From Tangier all the way down to Agadir – nearly 700 kilometres - you're never far from the salt smell and the sound of the sea, and the seabirds calling.
FACT FILE
Getting around – Tangier and the coastal towns as far as Casablanca are linked by the P26 main road, with frequent buses. Trains run from Tangier to Rabat and Casablanca (and onwards to Marrakech). South of Casablanca, you'll need to take one of the CTM buses for Essaouira (4 hours), el Jadida and Azemmour, or rent a car.
Rabat, Casablanca and Tangier all have international airports, though Rabat has few UK flights. Agadir airport is mainly open to charter business from package holiday companies, though there are now a number of indirect flights from the UK.
Visiting Safi's potteries – the potteries are open all day, and you won't be charged for visiting (though there is some pressure to buy!). But it's best to visit in the morning if you want to see the potters at work – many of them finish work at lunchtime.
And remember Lyautey's opinion: "Morocco is a cold country where the sun is hot". Very true of Morocco north of the Atlas. Because the Atlantic is cold, with the same north to south current as runs along Portugal, sometimes causing the beach and coastal strip to disappear in the thickest of fog, even in summer.