{"id":72477,"date":"2018-06-07T10:26:30","date_gmt":"2018-06-07T08:26:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.voyages-d-affaires.com\/?p=72477"},"modified":"2022-09-30T09:38:44","modified_gmt":"2022-09-30T07:38:44","slug":"incentive-morocco-medinas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.voyages-d-affaires.com\/en\/incentive-morocco-medinas","title":{"rendered":"Morocco: medinas as a breadcrumb trail"},"content":{"rendered":"

Report Serge Barret, p<\/em>hotos Alain Parinet.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This glass of mint tea, its rims misted with hot liquid, is not just a glass of mint tea. It's a symbol, a whole spirit; the praise of an oriental slowness placed on a blue earthenware bistro table. You could stay like that for hours, floating in the sun. a kind of contemplative emptiness<\/strong>. Especially as the pergolas of the Caf\u00e9 Maure in Rabat overlook both the mouth of the Bouregreg river and the Atlantic Ocean, giving it a very wide field of vision. On the other side of the river, almost like a border, the white houses of Sal\u00e9, the twin city of Morocco's tranquil capital, block the view.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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At the confluence of the Bouregreg river and the Atlantic, the Ouda\u00efas kasbah, the historic heart of Rabat.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The Caf\u00e9 Maure, with its terraces and arbours, is a real institution in Rabat. It's a must for everyone, alone or in a group, and can even be made private. Didn't King Hassan II do the same in his day, celebrating his birthday in style? Only to miss it, this iconic caf\u00e9<\/strong>You'd really have to do it on purpose. For it is located in the Kasbah des Ouda\u00efas, one of the must-sees when exploring the city. This is the oldest part of Rabat, and undoubtedly the most charming, so calm with its steep alleys, clumsy cobblestones, whitewashed walls painted halfway up in bright blues, bouquets of bougainvillea or oleanders cascading down; sometimes chickens and, above all, cats everywhere...<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In Rabat, the picturesque and peaceful charm of the ouda\u00efas kasbah.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Casbah in the capital<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Although the first stones of the Kasbah were laid in the 12the<\/sup> century - a mosque from that era is still there - it was in the 17the<\/sup> It was in the 19th century that the Moriscos, Muslim refugees expelled from Spain, gave it the plastic appearance we see today. There's also the delightful Andalusian garden next door, planted by the French between 1915 and 1918, as well as the semaphore platform overlooking the ocean and the residence of Moulay Isma\u00efl (1645-1727) - an enlightened king, a bit of a megalomaniac and a great admirer of Louis XIV - which has now been converted into a jewellery museum. What remains the monumental entrance door<\/strong> built in 1195 and, beneath the ramparts, the souk-el-Ghezel square where pirates once sold the Christian slaves they had captured. It's a very small town, and the whole thing can be visited in barely a morning, allowing you to wander into the neighbouring medina via the Rue des Consuls, opened in the early 1900s on the other side of the famous Place aux Esclaves. It's a very clean medina, with a host of antique and second-hand dealers, handicrafts and, above all, carpet merchants, including r'bati, the town's great speciality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The colourful world of the medinas<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Medinas and kasbahs are the order of the day on this tour of north-west Morocco. With or without listed monuments, they are the soul of the country<\/strong> and, far from the disembodied shopping malls of modern cities, are home to a colourful world organised in an almost medieval way: neighbourhoods divided by trade, rich palaces and humble adjoining houses, estaminets with four or five tables, improbable stalls selling anything and everything, spices galore and local produce sold daily on the pavement by the local farmers. In the background, oriental music escaped from some probably pirated CD, sometimes a classic by Fairouz or Oum Kalthoum, but also rock, techno or even rap. It's like that in every Moroccan city, each with its own face, almost its own speciality, but always distilling a unique atmosphere. Let's have a look.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the way back to Tangiers, along the endless beaches of the Atlantic, you'll miss the delightful, tiny town of Asilah<\/strong> would be a real sin: the walls built by the Portuguese in the 16th and 17th centuries are still standing.e<\/sup> Asilah has a rich history, with three gates, one of which opens onto the fishing port and the ocean, spotlessly clean alleyways, immaculate walls (except for some that have been completely painted in street art style) and art galleries all over the place. Like all the ports on Morocco's ocean coast, Asilah has had a particularly eventful history. First in the hands of the Portuguese in XVIe<\/sup> century, it was taken over by the Spanish in the 17th century.e<\/sup>liberated by Moulay Isma\u00efl in 1691 and governed at the turn of the 20th century.e<\/sup> century by the notorious brigand Raissouli. Raissouli had no doubts, since between two plunders, three murders and several kidnappings, including that of the American consul, the rascal built himself a palace at the end of the town, behind the ramparts overlooking the sea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The palace still exists. You can even visit it on request, or take it private for a cocktail party. As for the rest, just wander through the narrow streets, passing from gallery to gallery, enjoying the excellent paintings in some of them, taking in a pretty perspective here and a beautiful view elsewhere.a wildly romantic scene<\/strong>Asilah is a fashionable place, with its wealthy Moroccans and Europeans tired of the hustle and bustle of Marrakech and, even more so, of nearby Tangier. Because Asilah is chic, and today it's taken over by very wealthy Moroccans and Europeans who are tired of the hustle and bustle of Marrakech and, even more certainly, of nearby Tangier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The medina of Asilah, an up-and-coming seaside resort, is taking on a street art twist.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Tangier, then. Just 45 km away, it's a whole other world, even a galaxy, the antithesis of the little Atlantic resort; an atmosphere much more than a city, even if the completely renovated Kasbah apparently appeals a lot to the international bohemian bourgeoisie. For a lot has happened in Tangier<\/strong>. The green and the black have given Tangier its letters of nobility, tinged with a fair amount of sulphur. Between the wars, Tangier was an \"international free zone\". This meant that it was neither in French hands nor allied to the Spanish, but governed by nine major powers and a more than understanding sultan. As a result, merchants, diplomats and billionaires settled in Tangier, bringing with them an underworld crowd of artists, smugglers, exiles, girls on the make and bad boys. The myth of Tangier as a city of permissiveness, vice and excess was born.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Artists first of all. Painters like Bacon, following in the footsteps of Delacroix and Matisse, film-makers like Pasolini and, above all, writers - Tangier is clearly a literary city - whose list would not fit on the walls of the Sorbonne: Paul Morand, Jean Genet, Samuel Beckett, Roland Barthes and of course most of the greats of the beat generation<\/strong>Tennessee Williams, William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg and, above all, Paul Bowles, who lived in Tangiers from the end of the Second World War until his death in 1999.<\/p>\n\n\n\n