Rabat, Capital of Morocco

Saturday was the last full day for the week-long visit of my friend and colleague from France, Laure-Hélène. We have been exploring Morocco together and hatching plans for our students to work on common projects together. She teaches Latin, French, and Drama in Pézenas, France (in southern France, near Montpelier) and we are looking forward to collaborating together on lessons.

We decided to spend Saturday exploring Rabat, the Capital of Morocco. We took a 25 minute train ride from Kénitra to Rabat in a very comfortable, modern, and air-conditioned train. Upon our arrival in Rabat, we took a taxi to the Kasbah of the Udayas. This is the historic fortress and walled city built by the Udaya dynasty. Here is a picture of the main entrance, followed by a picture of me outside the main entrance:

We toured an art exhibit in the gallery located just inside the main door at the top of the steps, then we came back down and entered through a side door to get to the art & history Museum of the Undayas. We toured an exhibit about Moroccan jewelry from pre-historic man to present times. I thought the exhibit was beautiful, but I was disturbed that no mention was made of the importance of Jewish craftspeople in designing and producing Moroccan jewelry for the better part of two millennia. Clearly, Morocco still has a way to go in openly honoring its Jewish heritage.

Just outside the Museum of the Udayas is a beautiful garden full of flowers and shade where Moroccans gather for friendly conversation in the summer heat. I was impressed by the number of locals in an place of such interest to tourists. Here is a picture in the garden:

One of the most remarkable things in Morocco is the beauty of their doors. Here are two doors inside the Garden of the Udayas. They are painted in a traditional style and quite beautiful. Before houses were numbered and easy to locate, I've been told that Moroccans would give the name of their street and then a description of their door, so there is a reason for this beautiful art:

Just beyond the Garden of the Udayas, there is the Café Udaya where we stopped for hot tea and Moroccan cookies. The café itself is a covered balcony that looks down on the Oued Bou Regreg, the river that separates Rabat from its twin city, Salé. In the distance you can see the city of Salé:

While we were relaxing and enjoying the view in the café, we met an American college student who is studying Arabic in Morocco. He is attending the American University in Ifrane, Morocco, but he is originally from New Jersey.

After our break at the café, we decided to wander through the old city or medina. Just at the exit of the café was such a picturesque street that I decided to get a picture of Laure-Hélène. Later, we saw this exact spot on a postcard:

As we wandered through the medina, we eventually came to the Rue des Consuls. This is a beautiful, covered market area where traditional Moroccan handcrafts are sold. It is covered with an awning from the French colonial era, as you can see in this picture:

While we were wandering in the Rue des Consuls, I came upon a shop with very beautiful books and postcards to benefit the building of a school in the very poor Rif region of northern Morocco. The shop is part of a Moroccan non-governmental organization that is working on building schools in poor, remote regions of Morocco. I am excited to have found this shop and the woman who runs it for such a worthy cause. I plan to meet up with her again so we can develop a plan. This would be the perfect project for my students in French National Honor Society.

As I look at a map of Rabat, we really walked quite a distance all over the city. After we left the Rue des Consuls, we walked to another historic site in Rabat: The Hassan Tower and the Mausoleum of Mohammed V. The Hassan Tower (or Tour Hassan, in French and as it is called in Morocco) is the minaret of an incomplete mosque that was built in 1195 AD under the reign of Sultan Yacoub Al-Mansour. He intended this mosque to be the largest in the world, but he died in 1199 AD and the building of the mosque was stopped. You can read more about it here. As we approached the tower, I took this picture:

As you can see in this picture, there are many walls around historic sites and many of Morocco's oldest cities have long stretches of walls that used to protect the city from invaders. These walls have holes in them and the best explanation for these holes is that they represent where the builders put wood planks to support the scaffolding as they were building or repairing the walls and after the walls were built, the holes serve the purpose of allowing the walls to "breathe", thus preventing cracks and fissures in the walls. The holes do not go all the way through the wall, so you cannot really see into them. Here is a picture of the wall at the base of the Hassan Tower:

Outside the Hassan Tower there is an array of pillars which had served as a support for the mosque there:

At the opposite end of the esplanade from the Hassan Tower, there is the Mausoleum of Mohammed V. He was the King who took over when the French Protectorate in Morocco ended in 1956. In fact, he led the first Friday call to prayers after the French left from the Hassan Tower in what is an iconic moment in the memory of Moroccans about their King. When he died, his son became Hassan II and had a beautiful mausoleum built for his father at this site. Hassan II is now buried at this mausoleum as well and his son, Mohammed VI, is the current King of Morocco. Here is a pictures from the outside of the mausoleum (pictures were not allowed inside):

This is one of the guards at one of the doors into the mausoleum. Notice his beautiful uniform. I remember reading a quote from General Patton saying that he considered the Moroccan military uniforms the most beautiful. I can see his point:

We took a taxi back to the heart of Rabat and went for a walk in the shade along the Avenue Mohammed V. There were all kinds of people out and about. We especially enjoyed watching the families with their little children feeding the pigeons. Rabat is really a very beautiful and green city with many trees and gardens:

For dinner, we followed the recommendation in Laure-Hélène's French guidebook, Le Guide du Routard: Maroc, and went to a reasonably priced restaurant near the main train station in Rabat. The restaurant's name is "Tagines wa Tangia" ("wa" means "and" in Moroccan dialect). This restaurant was amazing! The décor was replete with Moroccan traditional wares from all over: Carpets, brass fixtures, earthenware, wooden instruments, iron sculptures, etc. Before I describe our meal, let me give you some explanation: Tagines are Moroccan stews made in a special earthen dish with a conical lid. The dish itself is called a tagine and the stews you make in a tagine are also called tagines. For example, my favorite tagine is chicken with preserved lemons and olives. Tangia is a specialty from Marrakech and it is also a type of stew made with meat and sauce cooked in an earthenware vessel covered with burning coals. Tangias are very fragrant and are best eaten piping hot. Both tagines and tangia are eaten with your hands using fresh bread as a sort of scoop.

Our meal began with bisara or a delicious puree of fava beans:

Click here for a video recipe for bisara.

Of course, we scooped this bisara up with delicious, whole wheat, homemade Moroccan bread which has a nice crust on the outside, is just shy of 2 inches thick, and has a soft inside:

Along with the bisara, we ate Moroccan green olives. There is every variety of olive here and they have countless spices to use in curing their olives, so eating olives is really one of the great pleasures of being in Morocco. Notice in the picture how they serve olives in a little dish with an extra side bowl attached for the pits:

Then we had one of the most delicious salads I have ever eaten. It was made with butter lettuce, very fresh goat cheese, walnuts, raisins, and aromatic argan oil (a Moroccan delicacy and specialty): (sorry, I didn't get to take the picture 'til most of the salad was gone!)

Then we enjoyed a "Best of Tagine wa Tangia" platter which included a selection of braewats (think: egg rolls, but stuffed with Moroccan ingredients such as lamb and chicken with lots of exotic spices), eggplant and tomato puree (a salad served warm, eaten with the bread), grilled chicken and beef, and veal tangia:

Finally, we were served more veal tangia at our table by the chef who brought out an earthenware pot with an aluminum foil seal over the top. He punched the foil with his fist and pop! The tangia came steaming and pouring out of the pot. It was very fragrant and the meat literally fell from the bones. It was incredibly delicious!

Just as we were finished eating, the lute player arrived and began setting up for that night's performance. I told him I was a teacher and he graciously agreed to let me film him playing his lute so my students could see (I wish I could upload the video here, but this feature doesn't seem to be working tonight --- I'll try to upload it later).

Our wonderful dinner was the perfect end to our final day of touring Morocco together. We talked and ate and looked back on our very full week of touring with laughter and nostalgia. I am so grateful to the Fund for Teachers which has made this trip possible! I know that my students will love learning about all the places I have been able to visit, but even more, I look forward to sharing with them this amazingly rich and diverse culture.