MOROCCO - Country SNAPSHOT

For Westerners, Morocco holds an immediate and enduring fascination. Though just an hour's ride on the ferry from Spain, it seems at once very far from Europe, with a culture - Islamic and deeply traditional - that is almost wholly unfamiliar. Throughout the country, despite the years of French and Spanish colonial rule and the presence of modern and cosmopolitan cities like Rabat and Casablanca, a more distant past constantly makes its presence felt. Fes , perhaps the most beautiful of all Arab cities, maintains a life still rooted in medieval times, when a Moroccan empire stretched from Senegal to northern Spain, while in the mountains of the Atlas and the Rif , it's still possible to draw up tribal maps of the Berber population. As a backdrop to all this, the country's physical make-up is also extraordinary: from a Mediterranean coast, through four maintain ranges, to the empty sand and scrub of the Sahara. 

All of which makes travel here an intense and rewarding experience. It's not always easy-going - there can be problems in coming to terms with your privileged position as a tourist, and in dealing with self-appointed guides eager to offer their services. However, in recent years the worst of the hustlers have been cleared off the streets (anyone who visited in the early 1990s will be amazed at the change) and the unofficial guides you encounter are fewer and more discreet. If you find things too much of a struggle, you can take refuge in low-key resorts like Essaouira or Asilah, or in the more cosmopolitan holiday destination of Agadir, built very much in the image of its Spanish counterparts. Or you could make things easy on yourself with a small-group tour, travelling by Landrover or going on an organized trek.

But Morocco is really an ideal place for independent travel. A week's hiking in the Atlas, a journey through the southern oases or into the pre-Sahara, or leisured strolls around Tangier, Fes or Marrakesh - once you adapt to a different way of life, all your time will be well spent. It's also a safe and politically stable country to visit: the death in 1999 of King Hassan II, the Arab world's longest serving leader, was followed by an easy transition to his son, Mohammed VI. And it's difficult for any traveller to go for long without running into Morocco's equally powerful tradition of hospitality, generosity and openness. This is a country people return to again and again.

As far as the climate goes, it would be better to visit the south - or at least the desert routes - outside midsummer , when for most of the day it's far too hot for casual exploration, especially if you're dependent on public transport. But July and August, the hottest months, can be wonderful on the coast, and in the mountains.

weather conditions apart, the Islamic religious calendar and its related festivals will have the most seasonal effect on your travel. The most important factor is Ramadan , the month of daytime fasting; this can be a problem for transport, and especially hiking, though the festive evenings do much to compensate. See "Festivals" section for details of its timing, as well as that of other festivals. 

A more current distinction, perhaps, is the legacy of Morocco's colonial occupation over the fifty-odd years before it reasserted its independence in 1956. The colonized country was divided into Spanish and French zones - the former contained Tetouan and the Rif, the Mediterranean and the northern Atlantic coasts, and parts of the Western Sahara; the latter comprised the plains and the main cities (Fes, Marrakesh, Casablanca and Rabat). It was the French, who ruled their "protectorate" more closely, who had the most lasting effect on Moroccan culture, Europeanizing the cities to a strong degree and firmly imposing their language, which is spoken today by all educated Moroccans (after Moroccan Arabic or the three local Berber languages).

MOROCCO - Traveling from Kenitra to Rabat (the Capital)

Travelling to Rabat from Tangier , you will bypass the stretch of coast around Kenitra - which for the most part is no great loss. Kenitra is a dull little town, and its waterfront at Mehdiya is scruffy and unattractive. Further south, however, there are pleasant detours (if you have transport) to the Plage des Nations near Bouknadel - Rabat's local beach resort - and to the botanical extravagance of the Jardins Exotiques. If you're dependent on buses, these can be visited as a day-trip from the capital. Bird-watchers may also want to explore the Lac de Sidi Bourhaba , near Mehdiya, which has protected status due to its notable birds of prey. 
It's a little over an hour by grand taxi from Rabat to Casablanca (under an hour by express train) and, if you're making a quick tour of Morocco, there's little to delay your progress. The landscape, wooded in parts, is a low, flat plain, punctuated inland by a series of scruffy light-industrial towns.

MOROCCO - Traveling from Rabat to Casablanca

On the coast, things are slightly more promising: Mohammedia has a fine beach and good restaurants, and is, with the smaller resorts of Temara and Skhirat , a popular seaside escape for the affluent of Rabat and Casablanca. For visitors, however, there's a lot more to get excited about on the coast south from Casa towards Agadir. Other interesting places to visit are the beach regions in Bouznika, Temara and Skhrirat.

MOROCCO - Casablanca City

The principal city of Morocco, and capital in all but administration, CASABLANCA ( Dar El Baida in its literal Arabic form) is now the largest port of the Maghreb - and busier even than Marseilles, the city on which it was modelled by the French. Its development, from a town of 20,000 in 1906, has been astonishing but it was ruthlessly deliberate. When the French landed their forces here in 1907, and established their Protectorate five years later, Fes was Morocco's commercial centre and Tangier its main port. Had Tangier not been in international hands, this probably would have remained the case. However, the demands of an independent colonial administration forced the French to seek an entirely new base. Casa, at the heart of Maroc Utile , the country's most fertile zone and centre of its mineral deposits, was a natural choice. 

Superficially, with a population of over three and a half million, Casa is today much like any other large southern European city: a familiarity which makes it fairly easy to get your bearings and a revelation as you begin to understand something of its life. Arriving here from the south, or even from Fes or Tangier, most of the preconceptions you've been travelling round with will be happily shattered by the city's cosmopolitan beach clubs or by the almost total absence of the veil. But these "European" images shield what is substantially a first-generation city - and one still attracting considerable immigration from the countryside - and perhaps inevitably some of Morocco's most intense social problems.

The problem of a concentrated urban poor, however, is more enduring and represents, as it did for the French, an intermittent threat to government stability. Casablanca, through the 1940s and 1950s, was the main centre of anti-French rioting, and post-independence it was the city's working class which formed the base of Ben Barka's Socialist Party. There have been strikes here sporadically in subsequent decades, and on several occasions, most violently in the food strikes of 1982, they have precipitated rioting. Whether Casablanca's development can be sustained, and the lot of its new migrants improved, must decide much of Morocco's future.

MOROCCO - Travelling by Car

Police checks take place on travellers throughout the country. They come in three forms. One is a check on local transport. European cars, or rental cars, are usually waved through. Buses and trucks are much more likely to be stopped, but usually only briefly. The second kind of police check is a routine but simple passport check - most often polite and friendly, with the only delay due to a desire to relieve boredom with a chat. Morocco has for its higways the Road Toll. Credit Cards are not accepted to pay for the routes.

PASSPORT AND VISA APPLICATION

Furthermore, in order to get into many countries on the stay abroad you will require a visa of some type, even if you are just visiting. This is usually an insert, stamp or sticker which is placed in your passport and the duration of its validity varies from place to place. If you do intend to work or study in the country to which you are traveling, however, you should organize your visa even further in advance as this can take longer to process.

As well as your passport you should ensure that you have at least one other form of identification with you. This may be a driver’s license, birth certificate or any other form of ID which is acceptable worldwide. As with passports, bring at least two copies of all forms of identification in case of loss or theft.

Help to Passport and Visa Application Forms. How to find the right one(s)?

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