Sign in with Facebook"Casa - perle blanche du Maroc" Casablanca by CliffClaven
Casablanca Travel Guide: 515 reviews and 1,268 photos
Okay, it is perhaps an exaggeration to call Casablanca - an industrial metropolis with a population of nearly four million - the white pearl of Morocco. But it is a city that has a hold on the western imagination. There is the dark, Bogart-inspired Casablanca, with Rick leaning on the piano in the smoke-filled cafe. And there is a lingering idea of white-walled houses glinting under the North African sun between an arid desert and a steel-blue ocean. Nice image, except that the desert offers no rolling dunes but uninspiring scrubland with a few mangy goats, and the ocean tends to be dirty and grey with several container ships moored offshore.
Old Cliffie was sitting in a pub - where else? - in Glasgow when a classified ad in the paper caught his eye: 'English teacher wanted in Casablanca - phone this number'. Five minutes later he had another pint and a job in Africa. A week later, as he was leaving Glasgow in his little red car - the big red cars came later in life - he stopped for a hitchhiker.
Hitchhiker: See you, pal, where're you heading?
Old Cliffie: Well, actually, I'm going to Casablanca.
Hitchhiker (after thoughtful pause): Is that anywhere near Manchester?
Old Cliffie let out his geographically-challenged passenger near Manchester and four days later rolled off the ferry into a dense African fog, caused by the meeting of the cold Atlantic and the warmer Mediterranean in the Strait of Gibraltar. The little red car rolled southwards for another few hours and finally reached Casablanca during the Friday evening rush hour.
Of all the cars in all the world.....
Reviews (8)
Long live Soviet-Moroccan friendship!
Local Customs
(2)
The highlight of old Cliffie's social adventures in Casablanca was the night he gatecrashed a reception at the Soviet... more travel advice
Aïd el Kebir
Local Customs
(2)
Many of old Cliffie's glimpses of Moroccan life that few tourists experience were thanks to a Moroccan friend - Saad by... more travel advice
Ferry in fog
Transportation
(1)
Who said Africa was always sunny and hot? Old Cliffie's arrival in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta - which the Spanish... more travel advice
Quick exit
Nightlife
(2)
Finding a café or bar serving beer was never difficult in central Casablanca, but could be a problem out in the sticks.... more travel advice
CliffClaven's Related Pages
Casablanca Travel Guide
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- "Real Casablanca is not a Hollywood image"
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Categories
- Things to Do in Casablanca
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- 8 Reviews
- 9 Photos
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- 91 Comments
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- Posted in Miscellaneous Forum "Re: CliffClaven says goodbye"
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Comments (83)
Coincidentally, I'm flying off to Casablanca in a few hours. :P Via Paris. :)
Thanks a lot for all of your information! It's helpful for my trip!
of course. how could i miss that ??:) nice weekend. dear old cliffie. oh... thank you soo. much. i got your another postcard on last friday . :))
oh such a lot of knives in this page - and hobnobbing as the jacket and the languages rise and fall - so brilliant - a tonic - ta
You have LIVED in Morocco, whereas I just stopped by for a long weekend.
Amazing and inventive presentation of Casablanca ! Anyway, though your talent as a writer, it is not the town I prefer in Morocco !
What, no romance in Casablanca...? The bar you visited with flying bottles reminds me of my days in the military while on leave in northern Quebec. Such fond memories... Pa (mapakettle)
an amazing page!!! hope to visit there someday, happy travel=)))
most enjoyable, great storries.
K.G.B is everywhere! Great stories, we are still LOL!!;-))