New York, New York (1995)
A Little Tour of Morocco
Casa
The first time I saw Casablanca, I came in on a bus from Marrakesh. I had been in Morocco for about a month and the teaching wasn't going very well and I was homesick--not just for the U.S. but for some of my best Peace Corps friends, who had been assigned jobs in the country's largest city. What first struck me about Casablanca was how French it was. And no wonder--since the city had been master-planned by the French as a model colonial metropolis during the period (1912-1956) when Morocco was a French "protectorate" (read colony). With its grand boulevards and rond-points, its pretty parks and art-deco villas, its sidewalk cafés and fashionably-dressed locals, Casablanca was hardly exotic--but after a month in Marrakesh, which in those dayswas, I was craving things Western. My first night I stayed in a little downtown hotel with a cage elevator. The next morning my friends met me and we had cafés au lait and croissants at Le Petit Poucet, where St. Exupéry hung out in the1930s. That night we went to a discothèque. The whole weekend I pretended I was in Paris.Today, you don't go to Casablanca to pretend you're in Paris. You go because it's where the Royal Air Maroc flight from New York lands. But many travelers, hungering for the fantasy North Africa of Paul Bowles novels and Hollywood movies, bypass Casa entirely and immediately change planes for Marrakesh or Fez or Tangier. I, however, long to see the big white colonial town for old times sake. Never mind that on the ride in from the airport I hardly recognize anything. The old two-lane road is now a freeway; where once there were only fields and farms, posh walled estates with Moorish-moderne great houses and multiple satellite dishes have sprung up. Closer to town, I spot a brand-new shopping mall, also with a Moorish architectural theme.
As we penetrate the center of the city, things start looking more familiar: the great ivory Cathedral of the Sacred Heart (now a school), the the Place des Nations Unis with its huge fountain, the bustling Place Mohammed V, and the landmark Royal Mansour hotel. Built in 1952, this182-room hotel has kept up with the times and today offers the usual luxuries--concierge floor, CNN, health club--as well as some unexpected ones like a traditional Moroccan hamam (steam bath), which is an ideal way to fight off (or give into) jet lag. My own way of dealing with jet lag after an overnight flight is to take a two-hour nap as soon as I check into my hotel, and then plunge right into sight-seeing.
By Richard Alleman, unedited version of 1995 Gourmet article