Exploring Casablanca - Sixth Day in Morocco

22. September 2022

On the sixth day in Morocco, we finally woke up with a good night's sleep. Ahhh, it was nice. It wasn't particularly late, but we were in no rush to get up. After breakfast, we made some plans for the day. The ideas were quite different. It might have helped to know what Casablanca has to offer.

One of the group wanted to swim in the Atlantic. When the final plan came, there was no swimming in it. Tough luck. We would research the beaches and go to one of them the next day before heading to Marrakesh.

The first destination in the "White House", as the Spanish called it, was to be the Hasan II Mosque. A local guide said it was the third-largest mosque in the world, although Wikipedia lists it as the 7th largest.

Well, we went from the Airbnb to the city. And damn.

FYI, Casablanca is Morocco's largest city and its economic capital. More than 3 million people live in it. I want to say once again that the medina of Fes greatly influenced our expectations of the country. Casablanca was a completely and utterly modern city of the 21st century.

The streets were dirty again and the air was smelly, but the buildings were modern, the buses were like the new ones in Ljubljana and the tram also looked brand new. The roads were wide and the buildings were tall. However, there were some crumbling buildings and bad walls seemed to be the norm. But in general, it was quite understandable how this is the economic capital of Morocco.

Over time, the tower of the Hassan II Mosque appeared above the buildings, with the Atlantic Ocean just behind it. From a distance, the building didn't seem too tall. I mean, yes. It was exactly 210 meters high. But it didn't look that big. Though, the closer we got, the bigger it got.

And even when we got right to the edge of its estate, we didn't truly comprehend just how big it was. We had to circle it to get to the entrance and the way around was quite long.

We arrived just a few minutes before the start of the last tour of the day and quickly paid the entrance fee (70 dirhams: mosque + museum) and went to the bathroom. Finally, we were called outside and into the courtyard of the mosque.

What awaited us was a huge empty plaza that stretched around to the south of the mosque, with only the Atlantic to its north. The mosque was now in front of us - gigantic.

We walked across the plaza for solid five minutes before reaching a gate. A massive gate. A gate that opened into a giant room.

When we entered, we had to take off our shoes and were given little green bags for them. We were then allowed to enter on the soft carpets that covered the floor. We were already mesmerized by the sheer grandeur of the mosque, but as I walked deeper into the building, I realized something.

The main hall of the mosque was invisible from the side of the door. And the door we came through was a simple side door, not even the main door. The main door was absolutely gigantic. And straight from it led the main nave (room) of the building.

I'm at a loss for words to describe "big"

It was magnificent, grand, huge, mind-blowingly spacious.

It took about 10 minutes before the actual guides appeared, one for each of the ~5 languages available. And so the tour began.

Some random facts about the mosque:

• 25 thousand people can go inside, it's usually full during Ramadan,

• the men pray on the ground, while women have two great balconies to attend the prayers,

• when the king comes, he walks in the middle,

• the roof is 1.100 tons heavy, but it's actually a sliding door; yes, the roof can open up for ventilation,

• the lineage of kings is written on two huge pillars (all of them are huge, really),

• there is a washing room in the cellar.

Now a few Islam facts, more for my notes:

• they pray 5 times a day,

• before each prayer, they wash their hands three times, the mouth three times, the nose three times, the face three times, the arms three hands and finally the feet three times (source: the guide and my unreliable ears).

The tour ended after a short while, and the guide asked for a tip. He was funny, charismatic and even knew some facts about Slovenia! But we are simple students and we got away from him🙏. We then strolled around the mosque and its estate.

It was huge and really beautiful. Naturally, an avalanche of photos ensued. Satisfied, we went to see the museum. Unfortunately, we didn't know where it was. We didn't know if we had entered the right building because what we found was a huge disappointment. Only some woodwork hung on the walls, in two rooms. Before we could wander around more, we were told that the museum was closing. Oh hell. You could pay just for the mosque and save a euro and a half.

Eh.

After a brief discussion, we decided to go get some food and then go to Starbucks for coffee. There are a bunch of Starbucks shops in Casablanca. I hadn't bought a drink at first, but Leon bought a vanilla frappuccino and expected coffee. When there wasn't any, I bought a Frappuccino coffee and switched it with Leon's vanilla.

And so I became a basic white boy. Drinks in hand, we continued through the town, ignoring the smiles of the locals as they looked at us. After all, we did look like the most classic tourists. We witnessed again, the dirty modernity of the city.

I am still confused about how the medina of Fes affected us (me). The sudden Westerness of Morocco stunned me. Of course, not all of the city was modern. It had good and bad neighbourhoods, but at times it felt like we were in an Italian city, maybe even a French one.

After a while, we arrived at the Arab League Park, near the Sacred Heart Cathedral (yes, a Christian church) in the centre of the city. We lay there on the grass for a while.

It was very nice. I had low expectations for this day, for Casablanca. A few Moroccans told us that we should go to Rabat instead. Still, the experience of the city, at least for me, was great.

No, there wasn't much else to do, a single day was quite enough for the 'White House', but the day exceeded my expectations and that's enough. The one disappointment, however, was the medina.

Compared to Fes, the medina in Casablanca was just… off? It was too new, the streets too wide, with random dead ends. In Fes, the markets did not end, all the alleys led from one to the other. You had to walk for a long while before finding the end of the stalls and traders.

In Casablanca, the ends came around every second or third corner. Tired from the whole day's walking, we went home. The original plan was to see more of the city, but we just didn't feel like it. We'd rather sleep. And wake up early the next day.

At the apartment, tired and with hurting feet, we tried to make plans for the next day.

During dinner, we realized that we didn't have enough food for breakfast, so two of the group went to the store again. When they came back we tried to make plans again.

We ended with the traditional "We'll see in the morning".

Ahhh.