Casablanca Day 7: Hassan II Mosque
It took three hours by car from Marrakech to Casablanca the White City, where everyone says there is nothing to see. We stopped by our Hotel Guynemer to drop off our luggage, then took taxis to the Hassan II Mosque, the minaret of which is the tallest of all the mosques at 650 feet.
The Hassan II Mosque is the 3rd largest mosque in the world after the ones from Mecca and Medina. The building’s foundations lie partly on land and partly in the sea, and at one point, you can see the water trough a glass floor. The main hall is covered by a retractable cedar roof and can hold up to 25,000 people.
All the materials used to build this mosque including the cedar, marble and Venetian plasterwork come from Morocco, except for the Venetian glass in the chandeliers and the Italian marble in the prayer hall.
Lunch was at Le Fibule by the ocean along the Boulevard de la Corniche, where we had tagines of fish with tomato sauce, chicken with lemon and olives, veal with prines and mechoui or roast lamb.
We missed Rick’s Café, which was never in the movie Casablanca and was closed for the afternoon. Taxis then took us to the Quartier des Habous, the old French Quarter, where we rendezvous'd outside the Palais Royal. We did some shopping among the small shops amidst many sloping arches, but soon the sunlight faded and it was time to go home. Everyone also said never to wander around Casablanca at night.
Joliot and Allan, then Aunt Gloria and Lester came by our room to talk and reminisce about the good old days. We always seem to do this wherever our family gathers. Joliot was the last to leave and the first one to return in the morning, to say goodbye. She would be flying back to America with Allan.
Everyone else was on the same flight to Dubai except me, so I loitered around the Mohammed V Airport for me 2.5 hour flight to Paris, then another 6 hours to the international airport in Dubai.
For more pictures, click here.
posted by moan @ 10:38 PM
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