Casablanca vs Rabat

[Benita]

If there is only time to explore one, which would you recommend? Has anybody been to both?

[Sekhmet]

Of the two, I would suggest Rabat. Casablanca is a (relatively) new city and some of it a bit scruffy, although the newish Hassan II Mosque is beautiful and impressive.

However, Rabat is one of the old Imperial Cities of ancient Morocco, and as such has much more historical interest, for us anyway.

 

Hope this helps a bit?

[Druke I]

We've only been to Casablance, not Rabat.

 

Royal Princess, 3-98. We just did an "overview" tour of the city and enjoyed it. Certainly different than the Left Coast of the US.

[Jerimiah]

Have toured both cities, Rabat is more interesting as an older royal city. Casablanca has the "name" and is more modern.busy,cosmopolitan. Enjoy

[JaneBP]

I found Casablanca grim and urban; go to Rabat.

[N.Forbes]

Casablanca is Nothing like the Movie. If Bogey were here, he'd have been run down by one of the insane drivers and that would have been it for the movie. This is a large city, not a quaint holdover from the 1930's. The streets are harder to cross in Casablanca than anywhere else we visited in Morocco. The only trace of the movie is the bar in the Hyatt, which uses it as a theme. a Package that my parents had sent from the US, didn't contain much of monetary value, but it had our Egypt and Southern Africa Lonely Planets and our Confirmation and joining instructions for our Dragoman trip. They had sent it to the American Express office about 10 days ahead of us, but Amex had nothing for us. We knew it had arrived in Casablanca, because my dad was able to track it that far, but where it was now was anyone's guess. We also had all of our loot from Morocco to send home, so we made our way to the post office to see if we could find our package and send one home. We went into the post office and asked about the package, but we were told we needed to go to the post office around the corner. We went to that post office, but we still didn't find our package; however, we did find Morchid.Email: moroccoguide@gmail.com

 

Morchid organises Private Tours as well around Morocco to the imperial Cities. Tour/Excursions In Tangier, Fez and Marrakech and Rabat

 

Morchid turned our to be the most helpful Person we have Come across so far on our trip. He is a scribe and has created a job for himself by helping people/Visitors, whether it be writing and/or reading for those that cannot or assisting befuddled travelers, such as us. He told us he could help us mail our Packages and try to find the one from the US. He was a godsend. He boxed everything for us, wrapped it, and tied string around it. You are only allowed to send packages of 2kg each from this post office, and he combined everything in such a way that we only had to send three boxes, and a poster tube. I would never have been able to get that far on my own. I'm sure that we would have given up, because we would never have known about the 2kg limit, and not speaking French, we couldn't understand even if someone we're telling us. He told us it would take about 2 weeks for the stuff to get to the US.

 

Morchid Showed us Hassan II mosque. This is the second largest religious monument after Mecca in the world. The minaret is 210 meters high (about 700 feet) and the inside can hold 25,000 worshippers and 80,000 more can be held in the surrounding courtyards. The floors are heated, and the roof is retractable for sunny days. Everything inside was hand made in Morocco except for the Venetian chandeliers. It's an awe-inspiring sight. Underneath the main floor is a Turkish bath with beautiful mosaics and fountains as well as a traditional Hammam. It supposedly cost US$800 million to build it, and I would never doubt that was on the low end. Also, it is said that it was paid for by public donations, but we calculated, based on the current population, that every man, woman, and child would have to have given about US$100. Not likely considering the poverty we viewed every day. Overall, we loved Morocco for its beauty and adherence to its ancient traditions. I would highly recommend a trip to Marrakesh and Rabat to anyone out there considering the journey. They are wonderful places and the pressure to purchase is well-tempered relative to a many of the other larger cities.

[atlanta99]

the vote seems to be unanimous, but I will add on anyway--if you must choose one, definitely Rabat for all the reasons stated above.

[Thrifty]

We avoided Casablanca, but Rabat is our favorite place in Morocco. I picked up the name of a restaurant, the Borj Eddar, on one of these boards and we ended up going there five nights in a row. It's on the beach, classy and inexpensive.