Farewell to Marrakech and bonjour to Casablanca. A fairly painless but early get away from our little riad thanks to the splendid organisation of Abdul and of course Majid by remote control in sending baggage cart men to collect our luggage.
No one actually swam in the riad’s foyer pool but it looked inviting and very Moroccan.
Our first stop in Casablanca was the Hassan II Mosque, the world’s third largest with the world’s largest minaret.
It’s the only mosque in Morocco open to non-Muslims and is a must-see. An architectural masterpiece built in record time late last century with donations from everyday Moroccans (or so our over-priced guide told us).
Fetching head scarves on our ladies. Not compulsory for non-Muslims but respectful (that’s us). Stephen even said a little prayer.
The next pic is of the downstairs ablution room (pre-prayer ritual) that can accommodate 1000 worshippers (or should that be pre-worshippers) at a time.
Thence to the Sofitel Hotel – our first western-style hotel in Morocco and a change from the riads. In some not so nice ways unfortunately. It was our first dust-up with check-in staff, who were incredibly rude. First they denied having any record of our booking until I showed some email correspondence. A manager of sorts finally appeared and said they had found a booking but no payment. After I went into meltdown mode, I was finally able to log on to my bank account in Portugal and show not only that I had paid on August 8 but that the Sofitel had acknowledged receipt of said dirhams on August 10.
The dramas at the counter continued as they demanded everyone’s passport details even though I had sent them all that information well in advance (as I had to all other hotels and riads, without a problem). Oh, says check-in woman, I don’t care if you did or didn’t, I would still demand your passports. Nice. Lesson learned: avoid international hotel chains in Morocco!
For our finalé, we dined together at Rick’s Café, created by our late dear friend Kathy Kriger as homage to the iconic movie Casablanca.
That’s our friend Issam on the piano and here again with Pam, Ev and I as we bid farewell to the 2022 Portugal-Morocco Artists Tour.
I hope you’ve enjoyed the virtual journey with us. I’ve had fun writing the blog and even more fun travelling the 24 days with our truly terrific group. We made it. A few upset tummies but, hamdullah, no encounters with the dreaded C. And in spite of some misplaced suitcases, nothing and no-one went permanently astray.
Goodbye until next time (maybe) — Paul.