Casablanca and Rabat

We drove on the motorway in fog for nearly 4 hours this morning through barren flat countryside to Casablanca. We arrived in bright sunshine at lunch time to huge traffic jams and the cars were parked bumper to bumper. I didn't see any trying to get out of their parks! Casablanca is the commercial capital and the biggest city in Morocco, with a population of 5 million and is famous for the film of the same name, starring Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart. We saw one of the Rick's Cafes and a spectacular mosque on the water named after Hassam 2nd. It was an enormous building with beautiful green and blue tiles. Prior to the 15th century Casablanca was just a fishing village and it was destroyed by an earthquake in 1755.It was a very plain, almost tatty city driving in, with continuous apartment blocks, each with multiple satellite dishes. In the city centre the architecture was almost art deco style, but quite delapidated and certainly not the romantic city we are led to believe it is. The water front had some attractive homes and we had lunch in McDonalds at La Corniche on the seaside!!!Several of us have a touch of Dehli Belly today, so we thought that Macca's chips would be a safe bet.
We arrived in Rabat at 5 pm.Rabat is the political capital of Morocco and dates back to the 12th century. It is located on the Atlantic Coast at the mouth of a river, with a pleasant maritime climate. It was a much more attractive city than Casablanca with jacaranda - lined avenues, broader streets and modernish Art Deco architecture. There were some beautiful homes here. We drove around Rabat, where we saw the king's palace in the Royal District and the mausoleum of King Mohammed 5th who ruled Morocco between 1926 and 1961. He is considered the ' father of independence' in Morocco. As usual the city was surrounded by a huge ochre wall and the Casbar fortress was on the coast. Rabat was a centre for pirates in the past. Unfortunately we have to be on the road at 4am tomorrow to catch the ferry at Tangiers before we go onto Granada! It will be a very long day on the bus, so an early night is beckoning.