{"id":4768,"date":"2024-04-29T07:34:08","date_gmt":"2024-04-29T07:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=4768"},"modified":"2024-04-29T07:34:08","modified_gmt":"2024-04-29T07:34:08","slug":"8-casablanca-morocco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=4768","title":{"rendered":"8. CASABLANCA, MOROCCO"},"content":{"rendered":"

O<\/span>ur guide in Casablanca, whose name I couldn’t possibly spell, let’s call him Ali for short …<\/span><\/p>\n

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… turns out to be completely blind.\u00a0 Novel for a guide!\u00a0 To be fair, he did have a minder to help him get about, but he just seemed to know where he was all the time.\u00a0 Very impressive!\u00a0 And, as he said, his eyes didn’t work, but his voice did!<\/p>\n

According to the Ministry of Islamic Affairs, there are around 41,800 mosques in Morocco.\u00a0 And over fifty of these are to be found in Casablanca!\u00a0 Plenty of praying opportunities!\u00a0 We stopped at one of the two largest mosques in town.\u00a0 The Hassan II Mosque.\u00a0 This is the second largest functioning mosque in Africa and is the 14th largest in the world. Its minaret is the world’s second tallest at 210 metres (689 ft).\u00a0 Complete with three globes on the top of the minaret representing the three elements – water, earth and fire.<\/p>\n

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Some magnificent examples of the tiled decorations…<\/p>\n

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We were given a “Welcome to Africa” drink (coke, lemonade, sprite or water!).\u00a0 This was at the totally, inappropriately named,\u00a0 Hotel Belleriv.\u00a0 Enough said about that!<\/p>\n

… and then on into the historic central part of town, and the olive market, where our guide pointed out a special (traditional?) door knocker.\u00a0 We’ve seen this before, but didn’t know it had a name.\u00a0 “The Hand of Fatima.”<\/p>\n

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The name comes from Mohammed’s daughter Fatima. The five fingers represent the five pillars of Islam but it’s mainly a symbol used for protection and as defence to ward off the “Evil Eye”. The “Evil Eye” is a curse believed to be cast by an evil glare, which is usually directed towards a person who is unaware of what’s going on!<\/p>\n

The olive Market sells …<\/p>\n

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… er, well, olives, mainly!\u00a0 Lots of them – and they are delivered by kayak …<\/p>\n

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Maybe!\u00a0 \u00a0Or maybe not!\u00a0 (For the record the sign actually says “Stop”.)<\/p>\n

How we managed not to lose anyone in our half hour wandering around the historic centre and market, is anyone’s guess.\u00a0 Leaving the maze of streets of the old town, we had a fleeting drive-by of a second large mosque, the Mohamed VI Mosque.\u00a0 The minaret here is crowned with five balls.\u00a0 These represent the Five Pillars of Islam:\u00a0 Faith, Prayer, Alms, Fasting and Pilgrimage (hajj) (As also seen in Fatima’s fingers, above).<\/p>\n

These balls can neatly just NOT be seen on this photo!\u00a0 But it’s not my photo, and you just can’t get the staff to do it right!<\/p>\n

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We did a drive-by of Rick’s Caf\u00e9 Americain.<\/p>\n

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The gin-joint owned by the bitter and cynical Rick Blaine (Bogart) in the movie, “Casablanca”, was an upscale nightclub and gambling den.<\/p>\n

… and we were back off to the ship.<\/p>\n

Leaving port at sunset we get another great view of the Hassan II Mosque and minaret…<\/p>\n

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Tomorrow (in “blog-time!!!) It’s a visit to Cadiz and the White Villages of Andalusia…\u00a0 And the decision to extend the cruise!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our guide in Casablanca, whose name I couldn’t possibly spell, let’s call him Ali for short … … turns out to be completely blind.\u00a0 Novel for a guide!\u00a0 To be fair, he did have a minder to help him get… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-regent-seven-seas-cruise-travels-in-2024","category-travels-in-2024"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4768"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4846,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4768\/revisions\/4846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}