Casablanca
“Wherever you go, go with all your heart.”
-Confucius
Day 11 – Saturday, January 20, 2024
As arranged, a taxi driver picked Dave and me up at Hotel Meriem in Marrakesh at 10 am. We then made the nearly 3-hour drive to the Oum Palace Hotel in Casablanca.
We were supposed to fly home today, but Dave had the idea to ask Air France to move our flight home to Sunday instead, since their sudden cancellation of our initial flight from LAX made us miss the first day of our tour, which included Casablanca. Air France made the change, so we asked Abdul to make arrangements with the same hotel they stayed in on night one, and had the taxi take us to the hotel instead of the airport. We hoped it would all work out well…and it did.
After checking into our room and getting a crappy Nescafé cappuccino, we made the 30-minute walk to see the massive Hassan II Mosque, the only mosque in the country where non-Muslims are permitted to enter.
We arrived around 2 pm, but the mosque did not reopen until 3 pm. We hung out with all the families in the seaside park just west of the mosque, and then bought our tickets and toured the mosque when it reopened. It was beautiful and ornate as you might expect, but their architectural sensibility is rather simple—grand but simple. To me it lacked the kind of character that drew me in when visiting so many cathedrals in the UK.
Afterward we planned to visit Rick's Café, but it didn’t open until 6:30. So we walked back to our hotel, had dinner, and then returned around 7 pm.
Rick’s Café is a restaurant, bar, and café that opened in 2004, so clearly it was not used in the 1942 film. However, Kathy Kriger, a former American diplomat and commercial attaché in Morocco, had the building designed to recreate the bar made famous by Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in the movie classic Casablanca.
The decorative and architectural details inside are reminiscent of the film: curved arches, a sculpted bar, balconies, balustrades, as well as beaded and stenciled brass lighting and plants that cast luminous shadows on white walls.
By the time we arrived in Casablanca I was feeling drained with what would turn out to be a bad case of COVID, though I didn’t suspect that at the time. We also had to get up at 4:30 am to catch a taxi to the airport, so neither of us wanted to stay up too late. Dave ordered a whisky sour and I had a Glenfiddich neat, which we enjoyed upstairs as Casablanca played on a screen next to us.
Despite the late hour and walking through some of the poorer sections of Casablanca, we were joined by kids playing football, and women walking alone, and men attending mosque, and groups sitting in cafés and dining at small street-side restaurants. It felt like we were walking through a slice of the everyday rhythm of Casablancan life, and we appreciated the opportunity to (nearly) blend in.
Day 12 – Sunday, January 21, 2024
The early alarm sucked, but our taxi was waiting as expected and we easily made the 30-minute drive to the airport in the absence of the traffic we had experienced the day before when we arrived in Casablance. We passed through local security to enter the terminal, went to an Air France kiosk to get boarding passes (we were not permitted to get them on our phones), passed through “real” security, and finally cleared Passport Control. All this with time to spare, time we used to get a quick bite to eat.
Air France 1497 (Airbus A320) left just past 8 am from Casablanca and we arrived in Paris a little over 3 hours later. We had to pass through a full security check again upon arrival in Paris, which killed about an hour out of our 4-hour layover—so that was good I guess. 🤷 We had a snack, lounged around a bit, and walked the terminal before boarding Delta 291 with a 3:20 pm scheduled departure (Airbus A330). One nice thing about the A330 over the Boeing 777: the Airbus is narrower, so both outside seating rows only have two seats instead of three. It was a small mercy to not have to share our row with a third person (and to not have given them the COVID neither of us yet realized we had).
After 12 arduous hours, we landed slightly ahead of schedule at LAX—only to find a stupid Virgin Atlantic plane was occupying our gate, despite the fact that the plane was supposed to have departed 30 minutes prior. After all that time in the air, we had to spend another 50 minutes waiting for the Virgin Atlantic plane to move—very frustrating to say the least.
Christa waited patiently and handed us both masks when we met her in the parking lot. I thought she was being a bit overly cautious (I’m just exhausted from all the traveling after all), which was only amplified when she provided COVID tests when we reached their home. If you could only have seen how fast and how dark the positive line appeared in the window of my test. Christa was utterly vindicated! I’m so sorry I ever doubted your wisdom.
Dave drove me to the Fullerton Amtrak station in the morning. I switched to the Amtrak bus in Santa Barbara (yippy!) and finally made it to Paso Robles around 3 pm. Absolutely amazing trip, but so, so glad to be home!
T H E E N D
Casablanca, Hassan II Mosque, and the North Atlantic Ocean beyond.
The toilet at the stop between Marrakesh and Casablanca. While you take in the scene, notice what else is missing… 🤔
Hint: there is no TP.
You can just make out the vertical black sign: Oum Palace Hotel, our abode for one night in Casablanca.
Hassan II Mosque
Hassan II is the largest functioning mosque in Africa and its minaret is the world's second tallest at 689 ft. (The tallest minaret is in neighboring Algeria: the Djamaa el Djazaïr in Algiers stands at 870 ft.) Hassan II was completed in 1993 and modestly named by Hassan II, King of Morocco from 1961 until 1999.
The mosque was built out into the North Atlantic Ocean. Time will tell if that was a good or very bad idea. (Should have worn my sunglasses. 😎)
In the meantime, it’s a very picturesque and serene setting.
About the enter the mosque.
Inside Hassan II Mosque
The suspended floor with screening, presumably where the women are segregated.
Glass cutouts reveal the lower level of the mosque.
Baths? on the lower level.
Must be low tide.
Outside Rick’s Café.
“Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.”
The downstairs bar (at the back) mimics well the bar from the movie (love the Fez (hat)).
There is an authentic 1930s Pleyel piano and As Time Goes By is a common request for the in-house pianist.
Dave seated at the upstairs bar waiting for his whisky sour.
Me seated in the upstairs bar waiting for my Glenfiddich while Casablanca plays on the screen.
Here’s looking at you kid.
Our early-morning taxi on Sunday to the Casablanca Mohammed V International Airport had LED pin lights in the headliner—Disco, Disco!
Oh yeah! Now that’s a positive test! Who knows, I probably have RSV too.
