Day 28: Camping Au bout du champ – Casablanca

Today: Trip to Casablanca.

We park directly at the Hassan II Mosque. It is built directly into the sea and is gigantic and impressive, or impressively gigantic? That is probably the purpose it is supposed to fulfill. We would only come in at certain times and with a tour that should last around three hours and primarily deals with religious topics, as Marc told us.

We do without it. Instead we walk through part of the city.

First destination: the Habous district, where you can get an idea of what the city looked like in the 1920s – Art Deco and somehow a new objectivity.

At lunchtime we fill our hungry stomachs with a menu de jour. Delicious, sigh.

We continue towards an area that looks like a kind of spider web on the street map. It turns out to be the main transshipment of goods. In an endless number of shops, as well as on equally countless counters and carts and tricycles, everything you need or never need or that you didn't even know existed is offered. In addition, vans are reloaded here, according to whatever system. And in the dark depths of the buildings you can see huge warehouses.

We are completely exhausted and desperately need a break with a coffee!

Strengthened, we head back and head for “Rick’s Cafe” as a stopover, even though we know that it is completely fake since none of the film “Casablanca” was filmed in Morocco. What was funny was that yesterday at the campsite it turned out that younger people don't know about it at all. Myths also have their time.

We end the day on the beach at our pitch and enjoy the sunset and the wonderful sound of the surf.

One more thing: The entire coastal section from Rabat via Casablanca to here is characterized by lively construction activity. Most are (or will be) upscale residential areas. We were surprised at the high vacancy rate and were told by Marc yesterday that there are only a few options for Moroccans to invest money. So many of them buy real estate and in order not to have any problems with tenants, they simply leave it empty.

Our fourth week is coming to an end. We haven't gotten as far as we thought when we made rough plans, but we need the time and we enjoy being able to take it. And who wants to just drive past Casablanca when they're in the area :-)