Casablanca – visiting Hassan II Mosque

Last stop in Morocco: Casablanca.

When we were planning the trip we began to realize that we wanted to visit several cities and that it did not make much sense to fly in and back from Marrakech. So we decided that we would return from Casablanca. We then had to decide how long we were going to be in each city. Rabat is only an hour from Casablanca and we originally thought we would be sleeping in Casablanca and going back and forth to Rabat one day. After some research and reading some reviews from other travelers we realized that it was not worth spending much time in the largest city in Morocco because everyone was of the opinion, me included, that the only thing worth visiting in Casablanca is the mosque.

So, after the two wonderful days in Rabat, we spent only one night in Casablanca, precisely to visit the mosque and to be next to the airport. We then arrived at Casa Port station where we were informed that a taxi to the Airbnb where we were going to stay, next to the mosque, should cost 15dh. They tried to charge us 100dh and as we do not like to be deceived we decided to look for a taxi outside the station and so we were walking until it was no longer worth taking a taxi and we walked the whole way. It was not a good decision … all the enchantment that Morocco had left us fell apart… So much rubbish, so much buildings in ruins…

After dinner we took a stroll on the seafront, overlooking the Mosque, which we were going to visit the next morning.

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To visit the mosque there are precise schedules as they can not coincide with the prayer times. It is advisable to arrive in advance to guarantee we enter and the visits last about 45min. The mosque is stunning, but the visit is too quick for the amount of graphic information there is to absorb. I was also a little disillusioned with the fact that the explanations were almost exclusively about building materials and the record time the mosque was erected and not about Muslim traditions or religious practices. It is however the only way to visit the interior of the 2nd largest mosque in the world and so it will always be worth it!

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After the visit we took a taxi to the station (which cost us 12dh!!!) and after a short tour around the medina we caught the train to the airport and the plane back to Lisbon.