Casablanca, Morocco

The kids and I started our foreign travels this summer a few days before Nate.  Before meeting Nate in Venice, the kids and I were going to meet my parents in Rome.  Unfortunately, our flight on Royal Air Maroc was 4 hours delayed, causing us to miss our connection in Casablanca.  This meant we had an unexpected 22 hours in Morocco.  When I think of cities I would want to explore alone with my kids, Casablanca would not have been high on the list...  I also didn't want to miss out on the chance to see a new country.  Nate suggested we book a private tour.  That turned out to be a great decision!  We had a driver and van pick us up at the airport and shuttle us to the various sites around the city with a private guide.  Since it was a last minute visit, I didn't know what the top attractions were, and wouldn't have felt safe navigating the city on my own anyway.

Our first stop was the Hassan II mosque, the largest mosque in Africa and the 7th largest in the world.  It was really beautiful and I don't think our pictures did it justice.  It sits on the Atlantic Ocean (almost in the ocean) with gorgeous sea views, and the interior details, with carvings and intricate details, were impressive.

The mosque had technically already closed to visitors, but somehow we still ended up with a private tour inside.  This seemed to align pretty well with our previous Africa experience that rules were merely suggestions. 

The ceiling was retractable.  

The washing area:

I liked the outdoor spaces the best.

Over here, we are on Ivanka Trump's property where she plans to build a fancy resort.  She is waiting to buy out a couple of adjacent parcels of land (one housing homeless people) before building.  The location was perfect, right across from the largest tourist attraction in the city (the mosque) and on a beautiful beach on the Atlantic.  

We went to a different beach later in the day, but were paranoid about pickpockets/thieves due to our driver's many warnings.  Earlier in the day we actually saw a group of young men on mopeds steal a woman's purse.  The teenage/early twenties thieves were two people to a moped, about 10 mopeds total.  The front person would drive, weaving erratically through traffic and pedestrians.  The back person's job was to steal.  We saw a woman on her own moped waiting at a stop light have her purse stolen (it was perched on the back of her moped).  After that we were grateful we had a private van and driver.

During the day, we also drove through some fancy neighborhoods to see the houses of Middle Eastern Royalty, went to a few markets, saw how rugs were made, and ate lunch at a non-Moroccan restaurant (too bad for me, but that was what the kids wanted).  At the western restaurant, the girls and I each ordered a personal pizza, and we thought we ordered chicken tenders for Derek.  Due to poor translation, his chicken tenders turned out be a chicken burrito, which Derek has never tried.  After a huge fuss, I finally convinced Derek he had to have 2 slices of pizza from his sisters or else he would starve as there was nowhere else to eat that serves food he likes. The chicken burrito was thrown away.  I didn't know then that the hotel provided to us by the airline had a free buffet dinner, so Derek did end up getting some spaghetti that night. 

Here we are at Mohammed V Square, aka Pigeon Square.  The kids feeding pigeons was a theme of the summer.

Despite being jet lagged, we got a good feel of the city.  It was interesting for me to compare Morocco to Kenya and Tanzania.  Morocco definitely felt wealthier and more modern than Kenya and Tanzania,  and a little more European, but Morocco did still feel like a 3rd world country.  

One frustration as a tourist was that very few people spoke English.  Morocco is a former French colony and French is the 2nd language learned at school.  One interesting tidbit I learned is that Morocco is effectively divorcing France (France is very unpopular there, as well as President Macron) and children will begin learning English in school this September instead of French.  

It was a day we were supposed to be in Rome, touring Vatican City, but we made the best of Casablanca, Morocco.  The kids were happy to cross another country off their list.