122 wanderlust.co.uk April 2020
As
the sunset faded into a purple night,
I sipped on a negroni at the rooftop
bar of the Hôtel Nord Pinus, tucked into
Tangier’s historic kasbah and decorated
with vibrant handcrafted carpets, rich
in Amazigh Berber symbolism. Next to
me, three Moroccan girls perched
around a table and discussed the
meaning of life, dipping in and out of
Darija, French and English with
consummate ease. I scanned the
Atlantic ocean; the lights of Spain
twinkled on the horizon. I was almost
within touching distance of Europe
and yet Tangier felt, as Mark Twain
said many years before, ‘thoroughly
and uncompromisingly foreign’.
Think of Morocco and you might
think of the mysterious medinas of
Marrakech and Fez, the rugged peaks
of the High Atlas, or the sand seas of
the Sahara. But along its windswept
northern Atlantic coast, from
bohemian Tangier and cosmopolitan
Casablanca, fishing villages and
bird-filled lagoons, storied Portuguese
forts and vast swathes of golden sand,
there are off-the-beaten-track
treasures still to be discovered.
If you take Al Boraq – Africa’s first
high-speed train, named after
a mythical winged horse – you can
be whisked from Tangier to
Casablanca via Rabat in just over
two hours. But why rush it? Instead,
I was taking the coastal road less
travelled, driving south from
Tangier to Essaouira in order to
discover another side of Morocco –
its untouched coastline and its mix
of cultural influences.City of artists
I began my tour of the northern
Atlantic coast in Tangier. The
gateway to Europe and Africa, for
the first half of the 20th century,
this port city was an international
zone and fabled for its hedonistic
excesses, drawing rock stars,
socialites, artists and writers from
around the globe. But after it was
returned to Morocco in 1956, it lost
its anything-goes appeal and began
to slip into a seemingly unstoppable
decline. Now its story is changing.
With the support of King
Mohammed VI, investmenthas
poured in. There’s a new glitzy
marina, hotels and apartmentblocks
are springing up around thebayand
streets are being spruced up.Capital gains
Rabat is both a modern
coastal capital and
a historic port; (top left)
Moulay Bousselham;
(previous page) a view
of Essaouira at dusk⊲ Previous page:
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