No Moss For Us

Once again, we were early to rise for a few hour train ride to Casablanca. The scenery along the way was beautiful, but in particular we enjoyed the view of the inside of our eyelids the most…

The Marrakech train station is REALLY pretty – see?!

This was the last time we were awake until the train hit Casablanca…

Upon arrival in Casablanca, we were immediately propositioned by a cab driver, and when we told him we were only stopping through for a few hours and wanted to see the mosque (more on that in a bit) he offered to give us a few hour driving tour of the city to orient us to the highlights. The tour included the Fisherman’s Port, the Hassan II Mosque (the big attraction), lighthouse, and Saudi palace.

By and large, the highlight of the visit was the Hassan II Mosque, which was the most awesome (not in the surfer-sense of the word, but in the awe-inspiring sense) religious building we had ever seen. It was completed in the early 1990’s, and was built in a mere 6 years, thanks to 10,000 workers who labored 24/7 in shifts! The mosque holds 25,000 worshippers inside, and another 80,000 outside in its expansive courtyard during key religious events. The mosque is perched right on the coast by the Atlantic Ocean, and includes towering ceilings ornately decorated, beautiful wooden carvings inside (made of cedar, to resist corrosion from the wet, salty air), and giant decorative titanium doors (again, to resist corrosion). On top of the decorative elements, the floor is heated during the winter, and during the warmer months, the entire roof can be retracted in a mere 3 minutes (and closed in 2 minutes!).

Outside the mosque is a huge square, perfect for photos

The scale of this building is crazy, as you can tell by this door

Not even inside and we were already busy snapping photos

The inside is even more gorgeous – we actually stopped taking photos for a whole 5 minutes just to look

The whole building is covered in hand carved plaster and cedar.

Jess & Grant for scale!

This is the entrance to the hammer and the only place where the sea air hasn’t done it’s corrosive work, thanks to the de-humidifying properties of the Venitian plaster that the rooms are coated in!

The ablutions rooms

After buzzing around the city for a few hours, we were back to the airport to cast off from Morocco (bon voyage!) and catch our flight to Lisbon. Upon arrival we scoffed at the massive taxi line and opted to try the Metro instead. We were glad we did. The Metro was very nice, and the airport train station in particular, thanks to the dozens of characters of famous individuals along the walls!

Two cool cats!

Grant and a sassy dame

At our AirBnB, we were greeted by our friendly host who we were renting a room from, and were treated to a splendid view from our room:

After getting some advice on where to eat, we strolled the city briefly en route to dinner, where we eventually settled into a nice, bustling seafood joint. We quickly ordered and then filled our bellies with fish fritters, octopus salad, grilled giant jawed demon fish, and fried sardines (Did you know Morocco is the world’s largest exporter of sardines; they provide over 40% of the sardines in the world?!)

This is called “Espada” in Portuguese. Jess called it the monster fish and had it for dinner. Delish!

Then, of course, we slept like rocks. Again.

-G & J