Saturday in Casablanca
By Saturday afternoon, I have moved on to the Grand Mogador Hotel, where our group is meeting tonight for the first time. It’s right down the street, maybe 10 minutes, from the Marriott where I stayed last night.
But before I go on too much, I want to just recommend the Casablanca Marriott. If someone were coming to Casablanca either on business or vacation, the Marriott would be a really good choice, especially if they have status with Marriott. The one thing you notice, though when you first walk into the lobby, is the smell of smoke. Now the rooms are all non-smoking, of course, but smoking is permitted in the lobby, an idea that most of us are not used to.
The photos below were taken from my room in the Marriott. It was interesting to see that one of the neighborhood buildings, an office building, actually has somebody living in a shelter on the roof. If you look carefully at the second picture, you can see where they live and that today is laundry day.
I was having trouble charging my phone, as it wouldn’t go above 61%. It seemed to me like it was the cord and the plug, so I decided to go back to the souk (market) and find somebody who was able to sell me a new charger and plug.
I didn’t try to bargain this time, so I probably paid too much for it, but I got one for 180 dirhams.
Speaking of dirhams, that is the currency here in Morocco. The shortcut is DAM. One dirham is worth just about the same as a dime. That makes it pretty easy here to figure out how much things cost in dollars. So my 180 DAM purchase this morning was about $18 US. Last fall, I had to make an emergency purchase at Midway Airport for just a charging cord and that cost me $30, so even if I paid too much for being in Morocco this morning, it still seemed like a bargain.
Casablanca is a very big city, with a population of about 3 million. It’s not really a major tourist center, like some of the other places that we will be seeing later on our tour, but it’s the modern economic hub here in Morocco. Apparently, cruise ships stop here on a regular basis, but there’s not really all that much to see.The biggest attraction in Casablanca is a huge mosque, the Hassan II mosque, which is actually pictured on the cover of my Fodor’s Essential Morocco guidebook. It is one of the first stops when our tour starts tomorrow.
But other than that, almost anything here that’s of interest to tourists can be found in some of the other cities that we will be visiting.
It started to rain early this afternoon, so when I got to the new hotel, some of my friends from previous (France, Egypt) trips, and from my time teaching in Lombard, were in the lobby, relaxing and playing cards. It was a really great time to catch up with them. They are all so nice, so this should be a really fun tour.
The day ended with a fantastic dinner at a local restaurant. The food was perfect, the service outstanding. It was a great ending to our first day together as a group.
Sunday, we head up the coast to see the capital of Rabat, the ancient city of Meknes, and will end up tonight in the famous city of Fez where we will spend two nights.
Catch you later !
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