Here There and Everywhere

El Jadida and Casablanca, Morocco

As we leave Marrakesh, I tell AdventureMan that we could easily drive here, and that gas prices are really good:

 

And AdventureMan reminds me that it is not the price per gallon, but the price per liter. Oh. That’s very different. The Moroccan countryside on our drive to El Jadida reminds me of Tunisia back in the late 1970’s when we lived there, full of little marabouts, or burial places of people who lived saintly lives. The guide explained if it is white, it is a man’s grave, if it has green or blue, it is a woman.

 

Market days along the route:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We reach El Jadida, where we are visiting an old Portuguese cistern. It turns out to be very beautiful. It also starts raining cats and dogs, making it very hard to take a good photo in any unsheltered place. The rain is really coming down! We are soaked!

 

 

 

Those are not blue skies; those are cloudy grey skies!

 

 

Light fixtures 🙂

 

 

 

 

The old ramparts of the Portuguese fort:

 

We stopped at a huge place where, once again, they were set up to serve groups. There must have been 500 – 600 people serving themselves. I saw ONE Moroccan dish. There were several Chinese dishes, an entire section of Italian entrees, all in all, a very bland selection of “international foods” which means you can find something to eat, but it won’t taste all that great. It is engineered to be nourishing and inoffensive. There were many many kinds of desserts, in tiny portions. This was a very not-special kind of place to eat.

 

 

 

 

 

The entry was built to be impressive:

 

We were very close to Casablanca, and made a trip along the coastline to see one of the largest mosques in the world, the Hassan II mosque.

 

 

 

We made a brief stop so everyone could photograph “Rick’s Cafe.” which never existed except in the movie, but now has a restaurant of that name, in Casablanca, and draws in a lot of people who saw the movie.

December 27, 2015 - Posted by intlxpatr | Adventure, Beauty, Cultural, Eating Out, ExPat Life, Food, Quality of Life Issues, Restaurant, Travel, Weather | Casablanca, El Jadida, Morocco, Portuguese Cistern