My Life in the Charente: spices

Wednesday, 9 January 2013

Christmas in Casablanca Part 1

Firstly, thank you so much to everyone who sent us Christmas and New Year greetings. They were much appreciated! I hope that you all have a wonderful 2013.

We flew out from Bordeaux with Royal Air Maroc on Tuesday 18 December 2012. We had an easy motorway drive of 90 minutes to a well organised airport.

Flying via Toulouse airport (a 30 minute hop) to drop off well over half of the passengers, it seemed, and pick up the same number; mostly Moroccans who obviously worked in the town and were returning home for a break. This plane below is a BA aircraft in strange and unattractive brown livery. Not one of their best ideas!!

We arrived in Casablanca to a busy airport. No sign of our transfer driver - 2 phone calls and 45 minutes later he appeared.......

We had dinner on the plane and as it was quite late on arrival at the hotel, we just made ourselves at home and had a good night's sleep. We woke up later than planned, and ordered a continental breakfast in our room at no extra charge. It was delicious; the French patisserie skills have been well retained. We then decided to take a 20 minute walk down to the seafront, where the main city attraction is the really stunning Grand Mosque Hassan II. It is the seventh largest Mosque in the world see HERE. It is right on the shore, as you can see, but the beach is rocky!

The craftsmanship and design of the mosaic work is most beautiful.

Looking across the bay to the d'el Hank lighthouse. It's set away from the town -the perspective makes it look as if it is amongst the houses!

An interesting hand painted tower seen on our walk back to the hotel. Note the traffic lights - all up in the air; makes it difficult for pedestrians to know when the traffic is about to stop!

We tried a Spanish restaurant for dinner the first evening. It was well recommended on Trip Advisor, and although the food was excellent, the décor was stark white, all hard surfaces and there was simply no atmosphere at all. It was also fairly expensive to our minds and we decided that one visit was enough, despite its good rating! We did have to laugh, though, at the waiter trying to uncork our wine. Holding the bottle upside down, she eventually managed to screw the opener in part way and then break the cork off. After a long discussion with her boss, over by the till, she came back with a new bottle which she successfully opened, but also holding it upside down! We had ordered Shiraz and the very first bottle that was brought to us was Syrah. With a head shake and a shrug of the shoulder, we were told it was the same! [Note: I think most of Europe and the USA calls it Syrah while South Africa, Australia and Canada call it Shiraz. We are used to South African Shiraz which (to me) does not taste like the French Syrah. I guess the country makes a difference.] We did eventually end up with the required Shiraz which was on the menu! For all that, the fish soup we both had, was delicious, and although my fish main course was pretty average, Nigel's steak was very tender and cooked to perfection.

The next day we were up in time to make it to the breakfast room and we were offered a typical Moroccan breakfast. The baked eggs with bits of dried shredded lamb were quite delicious, but we were not so sure about the 'crumpet' with syrup or the folded "crepe", which was decidedly chewy. There were plenty of rolls and croissants as well, so we did not go hungry!

Finding our way around Casablanca was not that easy. Despite having an excellent street map of the town centre, very few street signs seemed to have survived from the French era! Most had either faded completely or been removed! Here is one of the very few that we found.

It was wonderful to see tropical flowers around in mid-winter; this crane flower (Strelitzia reginae) brought back wonderful memories of South Africa, where we had them growing in our garden.

Also the hibiscus

As for the smells in the supermarket, around the spice counter it was quite mouth watering.

On the second day we visited the Cathedrale Sacre Coeur. This was obviously a beautiful place to visit in earlier days; a Roman Catholic edifice, no doubt built under French auspices, set in what has become a completely Muslim country. The main building with stunning stained glass windows looks amazing from the outside, but it sadly it is now neglected, stripped bare of all fittings and a breeding space for pigeons. We gather that they do have the odd exhibition here, but to us it just looked quite derelict.