Rabat
We decided, as part of our trip to visit Rabat, the capital city of Morocco and see somewhere off the main trail of tourist spots.
Monday
We had an early start as we wanted to get to Rabat with plenty of time to explore. We had breakfast in the hotel, before walking down to the modern station and taking the train to Rabat, the journey took just over an hour with a nice Starbucks in hand to speed the journey along.
We walked down the main street, which is wide and lined with trees and headed left at the end looking for the Theatre.
Instead, we found a park & cafe (Coffee & Mint Tea) as well as a lot of cats. The park was large enough that it took a while to find an exit.
We then walked through the Rabat Medina, which was neater, cleaner, less much less hassle than we found in Casablanca.
Moving on, we headed to the coast and reached the Kasbah of the Udayas. Unfortunately, the Museum was closed, but a local followed us acting as a guide until we sent him away.
There is a very Mediterranean feel to the buildings. After a wander, new random appears and tries to escort us. He takes us to the top of the Kasbah giving us some info on the old mosque there and the gambling den ringed with Koranic verses. From there we left him and found our own way.
No rum, but still a drink on Le Dhow
We walked back down the hill and has a drink in an old ship, called the Le Dhow which had been converted to a cafe restaurant. It was a bit twee, but still fun. The weather was good, and a cold beer went down nicely.
After finishing up on the boat, we could not catch an Uber despite repeated attempts, so we walked to the Mausoleum of Mohammed V and Hassan II instead of ambling through several parks and over one very busy road.
The mausoleums are busy with tourists and ceremonial guards are at the entrances. The architecture is impressive and they have a dominant position in the city.
We then walked along to Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, which is a massive building. We got there close to their closing time, so there were few others there. The collected is very good.
We then headed down to the Villa des Arts, a small museum set in a converted house with an interesting collection of artworks on its two floors.
For dinner, we attempted to find Le Petit Beur but the address on Trip Advisor was wrong so we went to Casa Jose Tapas where we had wildly too much food, recommended by a fantastic waiter. Overall it was excellent.
After dinner, we jumped on the train back to Casablanca and ended up ordering a dessert from room service as well as a pair of G&Ts as we tried to get through to Lufthansa to rebook our flights, but we had no luck there.