Asilah, Morocco

For my sixth weekend adventure in Morocco, I visited the city of Asilah! Akin to most of the other trips I have taken in Morocco this trip was taken and planned by myself and my consistent travel companion/fellow student. Asilah is a small seaside town that to my joy was a lot cleaner than Meknes or Fes. 

Transportation & Arrival

On a Saturday morning we took the 7:45 am train from Meknes to Asilah.  We ran into a bit of trouble booking our train tickets this time as the ONCF website was not working.  We tried to go in person to book our tickets, but there was a very long line.  Thankfully we had a friend who was able to purchase the tickets on a different computer and credit card.  The tickets were $16 roundtrip apiece. 

The train ride was about three hours long and during the ride we were able to enjoy the beautiful scenery!  I would highly recommend taking a train ride in the earlier morning as the sunrise was absolutely stunning!  There was also a lot of fog in some areas which was also neat to ride through. Once disembarked from the train, we decided to walk to our Air B&B. The train station is located on the outskirts of Asilah and the walk was about 1.5 miles (or 2.5 km). Thankfully it was a bit of a sloping downhill and didn’t take too long.  Along the way we saw a beautiful view of the ocean.  As we later discovered, our Air B&B was not quite ready yet, so we changed our plans and began looking for a place to eat lunch.

For lunch we stopped at “Casa Pepe.”   The restaurant opened in 1914 and serves Spanish and Moroccan food.  A friend had recommended this restaurant to us and it ended up being so good that we came back the following day for lunch again.  The first day we had the paella for two and my friend and I both agreed that this paella was better than the paella we had eaten in Spain (which had been a little undercooked).  The second day we had paella again, this time with a fish tagine as well. While the meals we ate here were not expensive in American standards, they were definitely a bit pricier than the Moroccan food we were used to eating.

While we waited for our checkin time to arrive we sat at the restaurant before and after our meal.  There was a nice breeze and we had fun doing a bit of people watching. We even had a shoe shiner approach us while we were sitting at the table and offer to shine our shoes 🙂 Due to the fact that Asilah is so far north in the country (less than an hour drive from Tangier) there is a heavy Spanish influence in the town. I greatly enjoyed seeing signs that were not only in Arabic and English, but also in Spanish as well. We interacted with several locals along our trip who didn’t even speak French or Arabic, but only Spanish.

Once our checkin time rolled around we headed to the location of our Air B&B.  After a while of waiting in the street and the owner still had not show up we were informed that we were in the wrong location. Apparently the address on Air B&B was not accurate, but no had told us this. We were about a mile away from where we needed to be.  We started walking in hopes that we would be able to find a taxi. 

The first guy we happened upon wanted us to ride in the back trailer part of his motorbike which we kindly declined after we saw the locking gate on it.  With our next attempt a man said that he had a taxi, but in reality he just planned to walk us there.  Needless to say, we ended up walking the whole way there. So as a note to any future travelers to this town, perhaps don’t rely on being able to get a taxi.

The Air B&B was exactly the type of accommodation we paid for, $32 a night.  There were two bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen, and living room.  Unfortunately it was fairly dirty including unchanged and stained sheets with other people’s hair.  We were also not given towels or toilet paper which we then had to ask for.  In addition to this, the refrigerator was dirty and there was mold in the freezer. That being said it did fulfill our basic need of somewhere to sleep for the night and some of the interior decor was quite pretty.

Iglesia de San Bartolomé

At 6:00pm I went to the Mass at Iglesia de San Bartolomé (Church of Saint Bartholomew).  The church was built sometime during the Spanish control of the region by the Franciscans I believe.  There is only one Mass here a week, on Saturday.  In attendance there was one Franciscan priest, three nuns, and about ten other people (some of which were visitors).  I thought that it was very sad that this beautiful old church didn’t have a larger congregation.  Mass was very nice though and the nuns sang and one of them played the guitar.  I was especially happy because the Mass was in Spanish (as opposed to the French Masses I have been frequenting). 

The old city

After this, I met up with my friend and we went to the old part of the city. In order to get there, you will have to go through what looks like a tower with small street running directly through it. The medina of Asilah is an UNESCO World Heritage Site and the area has origins all the way back to 1500 BC with the Phoenicians.

For dinner we were not very hungry so I bought some peanuts and candied almonds. I cannot recommend enough that if one travels to Morocco that they should try the candied nuts from street vendors! While in Asilah we also saw street vendors selling escargot (snails) and I really wanted to try some, but didn’t want to risk the chance of getting food poisoning.

The next day before our late morning departure by train we did a bit more exploring of the old city. The streets are very beautiful in this part of town. Most of the buildings are white with blue painted accent areas along with painted murals on some walls.

We found our way to the sea adjacent side of the city and were able to see the seashore views. The sea bordering side of the city is encased in a stone wall dating back to the 15th century that was built by the Portuguese. There were also stairs that led up to the top of said wall that provided an even better view of the city and shore.

There are also an abundance of shops along the winding streets, including many that sell jewelry and other items made with red coral. Red coral can be found in many Moroccan shops, but is mainly prominent in coastal towns and can be very expensive depending the piece.

Originally we had considered walking on the beach next to the ocean, but that was quickly ruled out. When examining destination reports provided by Global Rescue (a medical evacuation company) there was a concern listed pertaining to Helminths-soil transmission. I won’t go into great details, but it has to do with contaminated soil/sand with larvae that will penetrate the skin of your feet. This is common in different terrains in Morocco including jungle environments, tropical, and subtropical beaches. I was not sure if Asilah would be one of these places of concern, but did not want to take the chance and decided to err on the side of caution.

Strange sitings in Asilah 

During our very short stay in Asilah we had a couple rather bizarre encounters. As we were exploring the city, walking down the street toward us came a man.  I first noticed that he didn’t have a shirt on then I noticed that all he had was a comforter loosely wrapped around him. We quickly averted our eyes and changed course to another street.

The next morning, while we were wandering through the old city a strange man started following us.  He was wearing a short girls’ dress and was creepily staring at us.  We pretended to look through the scarves at a shop and he came up next to us and started doing the same.  We ducked into the shop while the owner was standing outside.  الحمد لله (Thank God) the store owner talked to the man and the man eventually walked away. So while nothing actually happened to us, it was still an unnerving experience.

Final Thoughts

All in all, as usual, I enjoyed visiting a new city! Asilah probably wasn’t my favorite place I visited, but I did really enjoy the fact that it was a small seaside town in Morocco that had significant Spanish influence.