Exceedingly high expectations,  a tour group of random people, extremely hot weather and visiting during Ramadan; our trip to Morocco could have been a disaster… But it wasn’t.  Intrepid’s Best of Morocco tour was a highlight of the travels so far, and Morocco is one of the most magical countries I’ve visited. In just 15 days we covered so much of the country, from high in the Atlas Mountains to the Sahara to the beaches and more, with a fabulous guide Abdullah sharing so much about this beautiful country.

Due to very patchy internet coverage, and the need to sort through almost 1,000 photos, the Moroccan adventures will be split into a few posts.

Casablanca

Mosque Hassan II is one of the few mosques where non-Muslims can visit and it is breath-taking. The mosque looks old, but was in fact only completed in the 1990’s at an eye-watering cost of $700M euro. It can hold over 25,000 people inside and 80,000 outside.  During Ramadan the courtyard outside is completely full during prayers

We’re standing a good couple of hundred metres back to get it all in the frame.

Walking around the outside of the Mosque it’s immediately clear the building is huge, but its not until you walk inside that just how big, and how detailed it is becomes apparent.

A one hour tour runs a few times a day ($12) and provides some great insights.  The intricate carved wood roof is retractable and can retract in just 3 minutes.  And the Hamam (bathing area) in the basement is only for show and is not used.

Rabat

Next up was Rabat, a quick train trip from Casablanca.  Here we spent the morning exploring our first Medina (old town). Moroccan cities are an interesting contrast with the old town sitting right next to the modern area of town.  Stepping inside the medina is like a different world.

One of the benefits of visiting during Ramadan is that the normally busy towns are quite empty – both as tourists stay away, and locals are often resting or inside. Rabat’s old town is beautiful – all painted blue and white, and narrow winding streets.

The doors are all ornately decorated.

Not quite sure where we’re going, but it’s pretty.

Meknes madness

The low light of Morocco came early in the trip, on day 2.  We were all given a free morning to explore, and a map.. only the map was a little light on detail.  Couple this with the fact that no taxi driver seemed to know where any of the ‘must sees’ were, and almost all of our tour group being taken for a ride by the locals, and we were all pretty happy to get out of Meknes.  In our case, we were ‘befriended’ by a local offering to take us to our location, only to take us on a 20 minute ‘tour’ of the medina – and no doubt half his friend’s shops.  It was only once we had got rid of him at the main square we realised we had only been 100 metres from where we needed to be when we first met him!  Still, no harm done, and a funny story to look back on now.