Colorful Morocco

 

Every country we visited on this trip was colorful, but Morocco came out ahead.

Before I get to that, however, I’ll give you a little-known fact about Morocco’s history as it relates to the U.S. In 1777, Morocco became the first country to recognize the United States as an independent nation, and it has maintained its diplomatic relationship with the U.S. ever since.

Our entry into Morocco was by ferry into Tangier, and that city wasn’t anything special. After leaving Tangier, however, we took a very interesting excursion to Chefchaouen, which is known as the blue city. Many of the buildings are blue because indigo and other light blues repel mosquitos. The photo at the top of this page is from Chefchaouen, and the next two photos show the city from above and a typical building entrance.

From there we went to Fes, where our Moroccan guide ran us ragged walking through the maze of the medina (walled city). Unfortunately, we were walking so quickly that I didn’t have a chance to stop and take any great photos. If I had fallen behind, I would still be trying to find my way out.

Before we went to the medina, however, we stopped at the Royal Palace at Fes. (There seems to be a royal palace in every large city.) It was just a photo stop since we weren’t allowed inside, but the next two photos show the front of the palace and one of its doors, which demonstrate more of the colorful nature of the country.

From Fes, we traveled to Casablanca, stopping at the capital city of Rabat on the way. Although Casablanca means “white house,” it is Rabat that is known as the white city. You can see why from the next photo, which was taken at the Kasbah (meaning citadel or fortress). The one following it shows that even the royal guards wear white. As you can tell from their uniforms, the royal guard and the other four men at the main entrance to the royal palace are from different services.

The main sight at Casablanca is the Hassan II Mosque, which is one of the largest in the world. It had a lot of colorful detail, but I can’t do it justice without making this blog post way too long. Instead, you’ll just have to make do with an exterior shot that gives you some idea of its size and the pretty green that adorns it.

We also made a very quick stop to take pictures of the exterior of Rick’s Café. The one in the movie was purely fictional, and the current one opened later on the strength of the movie’s popularity. Still, you can’t go to Casablanca without at least taking a photo. That’s the next one.

After Casablanca, we drove to Marrakech, which is known as the red city because of the clay used for the buildings. It was the third city nicknamed for a color on our travels through Morocco. The next two photos show streets in the red city that live up to its name.

Marrakech was our last stop in Morocco. For good measure, I’ll throw in a photo from the night we arrived. Roland had a bad cold and missed out on this optional excursion, but you can tell what I was doing that night.

It was a good trip, and I’m very glad we went. But it’s over, and next week I’ll move on to something else.