Rabat

The train only took an hour or so to travel from Casablanca to Rabat. The carriages had obviously come from France years ago.

We arrived about lunch time and headed across the road from the station to store our bags in a restaurant / cafe that had lovely shady trees outside.

We decided to eat outside even though it was a little cool.

I had a salad and a coffee with milk called nous-nous.

Our group of 12.

Rabat station. Later in the day we would return to the station and take the train to Meknes.

Rabat is the capital of Morocco, has over a million people and is a lovely city.

Rabat is also a center of education so street sellers here sell book and magazines.

The Post Office, built in French times.

You could easily think you were in France.

They have a modern tram system.

Those are not flies, they are bees attracted to the sweet desserts.

The oranges look wonderful, probably because of the green leaves.

Rabat is a city of interesting doors.

And interesting alleys.

It is sheer delight wandering through this city.

Our guide Mustpha wearing his snappy chapeau. He is a Berber from the south and a lot of fun.

The walls of the houses are very thick and this is a window.

We walked through an area with blue and white alleyways.

More purple than blue.

From there we crossed the road to the Kasbah (fort).

There is a view of the port area from the Kasbah but we did not visit the fort itself.

Our guide had laid out a path for us to take which would get us back to the train station so he disappeared and we headed off as a group. We were looking for a better view of the port area and a woman beckoned us into her house to get that better view. It involved climbing this staircase and I decided not to indulge.

There were other places to get a good view.

However we did discover that the Kasbah had a garden so we wandered around it for a while.

Photos do not do the oranges justice.

It is a restaurant.

The Tour Hassan. Building began in 1195 and was intended to be the tallest Minaret in the world as well as being attached to the largest Mosque in the world. It all stopped when the Sultan died.

The entrance to the nearby Mausoleum for Mohammed V which was built in 1971. It is guarded by the King's Guard both outside and within the Mausoleum itself. There is also a seat for a Koran reader who was present that afternoon. I did not take photos inside.

Some of the columns that were to be part of the mosque construction.

The Mausoleum.

Off in the distance I could see this curious structure which is still being constructed. It will in fact become a theatre. You can read about it here.

Another structure that I think is a Mosque but which was not accessible to the public.

We walked back to the cafe by the train station and I had another nous-nous which costs a bit over US $1. I concluded that Rabat is a lovely city and it would be a nice place to live.

We then had a two hour train-ride to Meknes and bed looked pretty good.