Rabat, Morocco

For my fourth weekend adventure, while studying abroad in Morocco, I visited the city of Rabat! This was my first overnight trip away from the city that I currently live in. Even though my traveling companion and I were only there for less than two days, we were able to see so much of this beautiful city!

The best way to get around Rabat, we found, is to walk. During our short time here we ended up walking over nine miles every day.

Friday

We took the Friday 2:22pm train from the Meknes Gare Al-Amir train station to the Rabat Ville train station.  We ended up getting first class tickets as the cost difference compared to second class was pretty much the same.  Round trip for the both of us ended up costing 405 MAD ($40.50).  The train was identical to our train from the ride back from Fes, we sat in a Harry Potter style cabin.  This time however there were other people riding with us and the AC did not appear to work.  The train ride itself was only about 2 hours, so thankfully it wasn’t too long. Since we were only going for the weekend, we packed everything in our backpacks and carried them in the train with us. I do believe there is a luggage compartment elsewhere though, to store luggage if you are traveling with it. 

Once we arrived in Rabat, we headed for our hotel/riad. A riad is a Moroccan/Spanish style house and as you have probably guessed is found in Morocco and the Iberian peninsula. The main feature of a riad is an open courtyard in the center often containing a garden or mosaics.

It took us a few minutes to find the actual location of the riad as the entrance was located at the end of a small alley.  During our check-in, we were informed about the Rabat tax for tourists visiting overnight.  This was not included in our original bill and had to be paid upon arrival.  It was 88 dirhams ($8.80) apiece for two nights each and the room cost was $66 for two nights.  Our room had two twin beds and a few small pieces of furniture.  There was a communal bathroom down the hall which, thankfully, had locks on all of the doors (more than I can say for a certain hostel in Romania).  While there was a fan in our room, it still got pretty hot at night. 

Our stay at the riad went smoothly without any problems, I will say that we had a bit of a culture shock one night though. One evening there was a lady giving herself a bathe with the bidet hose in the toilet room. The door was wide open, she was cleaning herself and indirectly the rest of the room too. There was a perfectly nice unoccupied shower in the adjacent room, but apparently the bidet hose was more to her liking. If this study abroad experience has been good for anything it has definitely highlighted cultural differences & norms which I have enjoyed learning about.

In the evening we decided to walk to the Andalusian Gardens which was about a 10 minute walk from where we were staying.  The gardens were created in the early 20th century in the midst of a royal courtyard adjacent to the ocean.  They were designed by landscape architect Jean Claude Nicolas Forestier who studied in Sevilla.  There are many different types of plants to see including but certainly not limited to roses, olive trees, orange trees, rosemary, and lemon trees.  This site is said to be on the UNESCO World Heritage list as well. 

Next we decided to wander down towards the sea passing by the Cimitero Al Shouhada (cemetery).  There was an absolute beautiful view of the ocean & coast down by the water in addition to a nice cool breeze. 

After this, we walked back through the old city.  Along our wander we saw many different shops/stalls selling different items such as leather shoes & bag, jewelry, clothing, sweets, and even a man selling fresh oysters as he shucked them. (We stopped to watch for a minute and my friend asked what the word for oysters is in Arabic. While we never got the answer to that question, he was curious as to where we were from. And for the first time & probably last time in my life I was asked if I was from Russia.)

This market was different than others I have visited in the past because its sole purpose was not to cater to tourists. At this time of evening, the streets were also packed with locals shopping and not just visitors.

For dinner we decided to go to a restaurant called “Dar El Medina.”  Akin to Fes, we split one meal which ended up being plenty for the both of us.  We had the Tajine poulet au citron et olives (lemon & olive tagine) with the three sides. These included Salade carotte à la fleur d’oranger (a grated carrot salad with orange water-surprisingly sweet), Taktouka (grilled peppers with spices), Zaalouk (caviar d’aubergine) (eggplant with spices), and of course, bread.  Our tagine came with French fries over it, which was the first time we had seen this variation of the dish, but dipped in the sauce they were very good!  The meal as usual was delicious!  Our food, two large bottles of water, and a lemon ginger juice came to about 200 dirhams ($20)-definitely a bit pricier than other places we have eaten at, but still not bad in comparison to the U.S. 

After dinner we went in search of something sweet and ended up purchasing some candied nuts.  We got three different kinds of nuts, cashews, almonds, and hazlenuts.  They were more along the lines of (peanut) brittle then the kind you buy in a paper cone at the state fair, but they were delicious none the less! 

 

The weather in Rabat was definitely cooler than the weather in Meknes which was in part due to the breeze.  On the contrary though, the humidity to Rabat was worse than Meknes.  

Saturday

We started our morning by stopping at El Bahia cafe-restaurant to drink mint tea.  At least, that was our original intent, and what we thought we had ordered.  When the tea was served and we tried it though, the taste was rather different and salty almost.  Some nice girls sitting a table over from us were able to tell us that we had in fact ended up with Lemon Verbena tea. (thé à la verveine citronnée in French & شاي لويزة الليمون in Arabic)  Personally, I quite liked it especially once we added a few sugar cubes.  The small pot of tea was only 12 dirham (or $1.20).

After my friend and I finished our tea we then met up with my TA and she showed us around Rabat. During my first year of Arabic at my university in America I had a TA from Morocco.  She was in the US for one year to help teach students Arabic.  I kept in contact with her after she left and was fortunate enough to be able to meet up with her during my time in Rabat. 

Our first stop was to Saint Peter’s Cathedral.  We were able to walk around inside and not only see the beautiful stained glass but also a very pretty portrait of Nuestra Señora de Marruecos (Our Lady of Morocco). 

After this we walked to the royal palace of Rabat.  According to my TA, when the king (Mohammed VI) was first crowned he lived in this palace and all official ceremonies and such happen here. Now though, the king permanently resides where he did as a prince which is elsewhere. 

When I say palace, I do not mean one grand building.  The royal palace of Rabat is more of like a walled tiny city, complete with a hospital and houses for people who work at the palace.  In order to go in to this walled area we had to go to the police office and give them our passports so they could make note of our entrance.  Once inside we saw the Mosque el Faeh along with very ornate landscaping until at last we reached the palace building itself.  We were not allowed entrance, but it was still very beautiful to see from the outside! 

After existing the walled palace we walked to Chellah, a historical necropolis protected by UNESCO (much to the shagrin of my TA who was annoyed with how everything was blocked off)  In addition to seeing the beautiful old ruins we also saw a few peacocks which was neat!  The tickets to enter were a bit pricier than what we had paid in the past, but it only amounted to 50 MAD ($5.00). 

From Chellah we took a taxi ride to the Mausoleum of Mohammed V. This man was the last sultan of Morocco and also the first king of Morocco. His total rule last from about 1926 to 1961. Soon after his death, construction on the mausoleum was started and took about 10 years to finish. This tomb is also the final resting place of two of Mohammed V’s sons; Prince Abdallah & Hassan II (father of the current king). Contrary to this however my TA informed us that they are not actually buried here, but that this is not public knowledge. (I think it is kind of it like a Moroccan conspiracy theory?)

At this point we were getting a bit hungry, so we decided to head to lunch.  My TA took us to a Moroccan restaurant called Dar Naji. For lunch we ate a delicious lemon tagine with all the usual accompanying sides. Afterward we drank the traditional mint tea.

In Morocco it is a cultural norm to pour the tea from the tea pot into the glass from a great height. This not only cools down the boiling hot liquid before you drink it, but it also creates a bit of foam layer on the top of the tea which is how the Moroccans like to drink their tea. Our waiter made a big show of pouring the tea from a great height behind his back. While the intent was to strike awe in customers; we had a hard time not laughing as we lost a good portion of our tea to this man’s mediocre aim.

On our way out after lunch we were given spritzes of rose water perfume to make our hands smell nice. This also another Moroccan tradition. Moroccans usually eat with their hands so in past times it was custom to wash ones hands with rose water after a meal.

We ended our day with a lovely boat ride on the river between Rabat and Salé. (I believe the river’s name is Oued Bou Regreg.) The boat ride lasted about half an hour and we were able to have a nice water view of Place Oudaya (an old military fortress). I very much enjoyed being out on the water especially with the nice cool breeze. We paid about 120 MAD ($12.00) for the ride in the row boat.

Sunday

Late Friday afternoon I received and email from the US embassy in Morocco about a planned pro-Palestine protest near the parliament scheduled to take place starting on Sunday.  When we ventured out this morning, the people were already gathering.  While I never felt unsafe walking through the large crowds of people, I also didn’t feel super comfortable in that situation.  There were families waving flags, people shouting through bullhorns, and large swaths of police gathered on street corners with the giant police shields.  The people were most densely crowded around the parliament building which was unfortunate as that building was adjacent to the train station.

This morning our plan was to go to Mass in Spanish at the Franciscan run church, Eglise Saint Francois d’Assise.  Unfortunately for us, there was a “parish wide back to school” that we didn’t know about.  This meant that there was one Saturday Mass (which we of course had already missed) and one on Sunday at some school a 40 minute walk away from us.  We only found this out after arriving at the church for Mass.  Since we weren’t going to be able to make it to Mass we decided to visit the Andalusian Garden surrounding the Pavillion Neo-Mauresque.  This was a very nice park without a lot of people.

While we were sitting on a bench, two ladies sitting adjacent started talking to us and even offered us some Moroccan cookies. After spending the morning reading in the park, we set out in search of lunch. We walked to a restaurant called (Levantine Taste) الذوق الشامي. We had hummus, falafel, and shawarma chicken and beef, all delicious!  The meal was rather cheap as well only costing us about $6 USD apiece. 

In the afternoon while awaiting our train, we stopped at a cafe and had some banana juice.  Thankfully the cafe we found also had women sitting amongst the groups and it was not one of those “only men” cafes. 

All in all, I had a great weekend in Rabat and I can’t wait to visit the city again! (Side note: the streets of Rabat are clean! I really enjoyed the break from the nasty streets of Meknes-perhaps I will write about that another time…)