Casablanca

Casablanca followed a second class train ride from Marrakech: comfortable, efficient and cheap. This is the Economic centre for Morocco and is not really geared up for tourism despite the exotic images potrayed in movies. VERY impressive was the Hassan II Mosque: a huge Mosque that in sheer size and grandeur dwarfs both St Peter's in Rome and St Paul's in London. A much more recent building, constructed between 1987 and 1993, it can accommodate 25,000 worshippers on its main floors and Mezzanine floors. With not much to see in Casa (as locals call it) we hired a guide, who introduced himself as Bill, and took us to places we could have walked to anyway, but the 2 1/2 hour trip did serve as a useful orientation exercise. Our luckiest find was probably the now disused cathedral, Cathedrale du Sacre Coeur, where for 20DHS (and a tip)we climbed what seemed like hundreds of pigeon-pooped steps to get a great view of the white city: Casablanca. This is a city where we first branched out into making market purchases, fruit and patisseries and becoming more familiar with Moroccan life. Four nights in the 1922 Hotel Transatlantique were enough: comfortable enough but with not much to do/see we were forced into go-slow which was important in terms of the number of days we still have to go.