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window-side table of the crowded city of
nearly four million.
From this sublime vantage point, by far the
dominant edifice is the imposing 60 -storey
minaret of the Hassan II Mosque, set right on
the Atlantic seafront and which opened its
saltwater-resistant titanium doors 50 years
after Casablanca's release.
LOCATION FOUR: THE NEW MEDINA
Not content with merely an Old Medina,
Casablanca's French colonial custodians
decided early last century to construct a
separate, more orderly and planned New
Medina.
The result was Quartier Habous, in the
centre-south of Casablanca, adjacent to the
Royal Palace that was built at the same time in
the 1920s and 1930s. Today it still hosts
countless bric-a-brac traders, carpet and rug
purveyors as well as a sizable olive market
selling every type and hue of the fruit grown
under the hot Moroccan sun.
It's not difficult to visualise George and
Cate wandering through the medina's
passageways, perhaps pausing at the
legendary Patisserie Bennis Habous to buy
one of its famous almond biscuits or some
fresh flatbread direct from the shop's ancient
ovens.
The wonder of the New Medina is that it
doesn't feel overtly artificial, since the
objective of its visionary French architect,
Henri Prost, was to create a medina that
respected the vernacular Moroccan style.
Indeed, beyond the hubbub of the
marketplace, the medina recedes into a quiet
stone-walled residential area with a warren of
arched laneways.
I'd love to linger in this part of town, but I
have a rendezvous with the Viking Saturn. It's
been an engrossing and enlightening day that
has proved that while a confident Casablanca
may not be Marrakesh, Fes or Tangier, in truth
it doesn't need or really want to be. Let's play
it again sometime, Casa.
This article originally appeared in The Sydney
Morning Herald (Traveller).
GETTING THERE: the 16-day Malta,
Morocco & the Mediterranean sails
roundtrip from Barcelona.
M e di te r r a n ean
S ea
B al ea r i c
S ea
Barcelona
Rome
(Civitavecchia)
Granada
(Málaga)
Ajaccio
CORSICA
Seville
(Cádiz)
Valletta
MALTA
ITALY
SPAIN
FRANCE
MOROCCO
ALGERIA
TUNISIA
St r ai t of
G ib r al t a r
At lant i c
O cean
A lb o r an
S ea
Marseille
Tunis
(La Goulette)
Algiers
Casablanca
–
C r ui s e
••
O ve r night in Po r t
VIEW
VOYAGE
exclusive La Grande Table Marocaine on the
23rd floor of the newly opened Royal
Mansour Casablanca luxury hotel.
The hotel is a reimagining of old
Casablanca, too, the 1952 Hotel El Mansour
having once occupied the site.
While the replica of Rick's Café would
suffice as the key location for any remake, the
five-star Royal Mansour is precisely the sort of
place you can imagine George and Cate
gravitating to during filming and probably
staying in.
Over an unforgettable Moroccan luncheon
featuring stuffed sea bream, Tangier-style and
a selection of Moroccan salads, there are
superb, if not staggering, views from my
Clockwise, from top:
Casablanca's modern
architecture; carpet shop,
Quartier Habous
