Casablanca

Hassan II Mosque
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Our train journey to Casablanca was quite fun, if a little squashed as just before the train left a large group of Morrocan women squashed into our rather small carriage. Half way through the journey while the women were merrily chatting away, Pete decided to try the local custom of offering food to fellow passenges which we had read about in our guide book. At first this was met with a few bewildered stares. However, it seemed to go down well in the end.

We only had one night in Casablanca so we decided to see as much as possible by walking into the centre. However, we very quickly decided that this was not one of Morocco's most welcoming cities. The buildings were pretty characterless and we were surprised to see several drunk people staggering along the streets (these were the only drunk people we saw in whole of Morrocco). On our way we did spot the new and vast Hassan II Mosque which was beautifully floodlit at the time but that was all. 

Our last night in Morocco.

Rick's Cafe
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When we finally made it into the medina we were actually quite relieved. We were now familiar with the narrow streets which are, busy with traders and customers and had felt quite uneasy in the open streets of the ville nouvelle where people were just hanging around doing very little.

As this was our last night we decided to have a fun tacky meal in the recently opened Rick's Cafe. The cafe is apparently an exact replica of the similary named cafe in the film Casablanca. When we eventually found it we were welcomed by the nicest security guards we have ever met and they chatted away while carefully searching through our bag. We were then led into the restaurant and shown to a table by the bar. It turned out that the cafe is actually a very classy place and we had an excellent meal while listening to some nice live jazz. We did feel a little sorry for the waiters though, as the uniforms they were wearing were also exact replicas from the film.

Rick's Cafe
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The next morning we awoke early and caught a train to the airport. We then did some last minute frantic postcard writting before we boarded our flight to Heathrow.