Wrong order

We drove from Chefchouen to Rabat this morning. The route took us through verdant farmlands which were rather surprisingly being worked by hand, donkey and mule. We saw people harvesting with scythes, sowing by hand, and so on. All very picturesque, but poorer than I had expected.

Our trip around Morocco has followed a broadly anti-clockwise path while most people go the other way. Rabat showed why as it was nice enough but the Medina was not a patch on Fes or Marrakech. Still we had a nice time by the Ocean in the Sun.

Then it was back in the car to drive to Casablanca. In spite of the romance of the movie, Casablanca is a huge city with not much going for it. It has an enormous mosque built in the 1990s which we saw from the outside.

So for most people this would be a start with better sights to come. For us it is a slightly disappointing end to what has been a lovely trip through a fascinating country. Sadly the only gin joint within walking distance of our hotel was so smoke-filled we couldn’t even have a cocktail and channel Bogart and Bacall.