01 | Breakfast at the hotel in Casablanca
The second day of my trip began in Casablanca. I woke up after the call to prayer and went downstairs for breakfast at the hotel. Afterward I went wandering for a while and then went back to my hotel to get my things so I could head to Rabat, the capital of Morocco, which is a one hour train ride away. Daylight savings time was supposed to be the night before, but I realized as I was checking out that it had been moved to a month later, so while I’d thought I was on time to catch my train, I’d actually missed it! I got to the train station and they told me that I could use the same ticket I’d already bought, so I didn’t need to buy another. I’d purchased second class tickets for all of my train rides, so it was incredibly hot and I ended up wishing that I’d gotten first class (which costs only a little more). I dozed off for a while on the ride and when I woke up an old woman in the seat across from me began trying to talk to me in Arabic. I think she thought that maybe if she just repeated herself several times, but slower each time, that I might understand, so I just smiled and nodded.
01 | Medina walls of Rabat
02 | A door in the city walls
03 | Door in the medina of Rabat
After arriving in Rabat I used the map in my Rough Guides book to figure out how to get to the medina. You would think that after almost killing myself the day before trying to walk to my hotel from the train station that I would have learned my lesson and just gotten a cab, but since I have what appears to be a terrible learning curve, I thought to myself “but it’s so nice out, I’ll just walk”. The walk wasn’t as bad as the day before, but the shoes I had brought along were too tight and had given me blisters all over my feet. I walked to the Bab el Had gate and entered the medina. The first thing I did was buy some babouches out of a trash bag for 35MAD, and then found a place to buy bandages so I could cover all my blisters. The babouches turned out to be super uncomfortable, but after wearing such terrible shoes prior to that, they actually felt pretty good that first day. I’ve since learned to travel with more than one pair of shoes.
04 | Bab El Had gate
After buying my new babouches, I exited Bab el Had and searched for the entrance on the map provided by my hotel’s website so I could find my way there. Very few of the streets in the medinas have signs, so if you need to find a certain street, you have to know where you’re starting from if you ever want to find it. I got to the correct entrance and walked past the souks and several places selling fruits and breads. At most of the bakeries you could see bees buzzing around the food. The hotel was a long walk away, but it wasn’t too terrible despite the heat. At the very least, there was a lot more to see on this walk than on the walk to the hotel in Casablanca the previous day.
05 | Inside Rabat’s Medina
06 | A window in the medina
07 | Inside Rabat’s Medina
I’d booked a room at Riad Marhaba, a beautiful riad (a multi-level house with an open-air courtyard in the center) which ended up being the nicest place I stayed on the trip. I was in the suite on the first floor that had a room that was about as big as both of the rooms in my apartment put together. The owner, a young guy named Mohammed, gave me a map of the area and told me where to go and how to get there based off of the list I’d made of things that I wanted to see.
08 | Walls of Kasbah Des Oudayas (click for more)
I went to the Kasbah Oudayas (Kasbah des Oudaias) and bought some postcards on the way. I hadn’t really eaten anything since I was so late getting into the city after missing my first train and decided to put off eating lunch until I could see some things, so I was pretty hungry. When I got to the kasbah and there were several touts who tried to point me in the wrong direction so I’d get lost, hoping they could then force me to pay them for guiding me around. (This is very common in Morocco, so if you’re planning a trip there, I strongly recommend installing MapsWithMe on your phone and downloading the map for Morocco so you can use GPS to find your way around.) I got frustrated and finally just walked away until they left me alone. The inside of the kasbah is painted blue, similar to the town of Chefchaouen, which I visited later on my trip.
09 | Inside Kasbah Des Oudayas (click for more)
10 | A man in the Kasbah (click for more)
From there I went to the Andalusian Gardens, which are next to the Kasbah, and walked around for a while to get out of the heat. I also went to the little cafe next door and ate some cookies and rested. While I was sitting there I was so tired I almost dozed off.
11 | Andalusian Gardens next to the Kasbah (click for more)
12 | A painted door inside the Andalusian Gardens (click for more)
Next, I walked down the riverfront of the Oued Bou Regreg (أبو رقراق) to get to the Hassan Tower. It was a pretty long walk, and required walking up some steps on a steep hill to get to the top. It would have been really nice if it hadn’t been quite so hot, but the heat made it a little rough. The tower was part of the Hassan Mosque and is located next to the Mohammed V Mausoleum. I took some photos of the tower and then went into the mausoleum, which was beautiful.
13 | The Oued Bou Regreg River
14 | Boats docked next to the Oued Bou Regreg
15 | Boys fishing in the Oued Bou Regreg
16 | The Hassan II Tower (click for more)
17 | The Mohammed V Mausoleum (click for more)
18 | Fountain outside the Mohammed V Mausoleum (click for more)
After I was done at the Mausoleum I walked back down to the intersection I’d come from to try to catch a cab to the Chellah Necropolis. It took a while to find a cab that would use it’s meter, but I eventually found one and departed. There were a lot of tour groups at the Necropolis, but it was pretty big, so it was fairly easy to avoid them. I was most surprised by the number of cats there. I think I counted at least 30 of them at the Necropolis before I gave up trying. Morocco seems to be full of stray cats, but I don’t think I saw a single dog the entire trip. I took quite a few pictures of the Necropolis and it was one of the highlights of Rabat for me.
19 | Ruins of the Chellah Necropolis (click for more)
20 | An old minaret inside the Chellah Necropolis (click for more)
21 | A doorway inside the Chellah Necropolis (click for more)
22 | Ruins inside Chellah Necropolis (click for more)
Getting a cab back to the city was difficult since very few cabs come all the way down the road to the Necropolis unless they’re dropping someone off, so you have to walk back to the road to catch one. The driver I ended up with didn’t understand where I was saying I wanted to go and he pulled over to ask a woman for help who spoke a very small amount of English, and she pointed us in the right direction. Not too much later, after I’d gotten back to the medina and was wandering around, I bumped into her again and she asked me if I’d gotten to where I was going and I thanked her for the help.
23 | A fruit market inside the souks
24 | A bread stall inside the souks
I decided to walk around the souks for a while, and while I was there I found a power adapter that I could use with USB cables for charging up my phone and ipod, which was great since I was worried about plugging anything in after my alarm clock had gotten fried the day before in Casablanca. At one shop I ate a fruit salad with yogurt and avocado and strawberry syrups on top. I had a few of these while I was in Morocco and they were delicious. For dinner I got some sort of loose meat sandwich that seemed to be popular with locals, but that I think might have been responsible for a stomach ache I got later, and also found a place that sold sfenj (الشفنج), Moroccan donuts. Moroccans aren’t big fans of having their photos taken, and especially not photos of their shops, but I did manage to get a few photos in the souks without getting caught.
25 | Inside the medina and souks
26 | The souks of Rabat
27 | Shopping in the souks
28 | The souks of Rabat
Around sunset I rushed back to the hotel so I could take some photos from the rooftop and listen to the call to prayer. I was pretty tired by the end of the day and I must’ve looked like it, because when I got back to the hotel the riad manager took one look at me and said, “Are you going to bed now? You look tired!” And so I called it a day, took a shower, and went to bed.
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