even more so once the new corniche is completed. Among the decent seafood restaurants here
is Laachiri ( 0539 39 00 06; fish platter Dh90; lunch & dinner) looking across the Strait
to Gibraltar. Just beyond you’ll spot Tanger Med , the massive new container facility and ferry
port, 45km from Tangier.
The best view along the way is the great crag of Jebel Musa , one of the ancient Pillars of
Hercules (the Rock of Gibraltar being the other), which rises up 10km or so further on.
Ceuta (Sebta)
POP 78,700
Ceuta is one of a handful of Spanish possessions on the coastline of Morocco (see the boxed
text, Click here ), and a real gem. Located on a peninsula jutting out into the Mediterranean, it
offers a compact dose of fantastic architecture, interesting museums, excellent food, a relaxing
maritime park and bracing nature walks, with A-plus traveller support at every turn. The city is
particularly beautiful at night, a skyline of artfully lit buildings and bursting palms.
Ceuta served as one of the Roman Empire’s coastal bases (its Arabic name, Sebta, stems
from the Latin Septem ). After a brief stint under the control of the Byzantine Empire, the city
was taken in AD 931 by the Arab rulers of Muslim Spain – the basis for Spain’s claim of
historical rights to the land. For the next 500 years, however, this city at the tip of Africa was
like a prized possession, fought over and ruled successively by Spanish princes, Moroccan
sultans and Portuguese kings. Things began to settle down when Portugal and Spain united
under one crown in 1580, and Ceuta passed to Spain by default. When the two countries split
in 1640, Ceuta remained Spanish, and has been ever since.
If entering from Morocco, Ceuta is also an eye-opener. Like the former West Berlin, it comes
across as a grand social experiment concocted by rival political systems. Leaving the beggars
and street hustlers behind, you cross over a grim border zone, a 100m no-man’s-land of
haphazardly placed barricades, part of a €30 million fence erected by the EU to prevent illegal
immigration, to find yourself blinking in the light of Spanish culture, a relaxed world of well-kept
plazas, beautiful buildings and tapas bars bubbling over until the wee hours. This experience
alone is worth the trip and lingers thereafter.