 |
| Hassan II Mosque and Casablanca shoreline across Atlantic ocean from Cabano Beach |
After the lanes of Fes el-Bali, we trade the medina for ONCF train 132 to Casablanca. The route runs through Rabat to Morocco’s Atlantic commercial capital, where a port, twentieth-century planning, oceanfront neighborhoods and Hassan II Mosque have spent decades refusing to fit into one tidy description.
This July 2023 stop belongs to our Pan-Africa journey. We arrive by train, tour by petit taxi and leave for Mohammed V International Airport by grand taxi. The transport is public, the timetable is optimistic and nobody has to find a parking space.
Fes to Casablanca — Post Summary
We take an evening ONCF train from Fes through Rabat to Casablanca, then spend a full day crossing the city by taxi. The route links Casa-Voyageurs, Casa-Port, the commercial harbor, Rick’s Café, Hassan II Mosque, El Hank, the Corniche, Anfa, Habous and the central civic squares before a grand taxi carries us south to Mohammed V International Airport.
| What's Covered | |
| ▸ | Route at a Glance — Fes, Rabat, Casablanca and the airport in travel order |
| ▸ | Fes to Casablanca by Train — ONCF train 132, Rabat and Casa-Voyageurs |
| ▸ | Casablanca: Port City and Modern Metropolis — Anfa, migration, planning and wartime history |
| ▸ | Petit and Grand Taxis in Casablanca — City taxi rules and Mohammad’s full-day circuit |
| ▸ | Casa-Port and the Port of Casablanca — Rail terminus, cargo terminals and the waterfront |
| ▸ | Rick’s Café and the Casablanca Film — Hollywood mythology given a real address |
| ▸ | Hassan II Mosque — Oceanfront engineering and Moroccan craft traditions |
| ▸ | El Hank and Casablanca’s Atlantic Shore — Lighthouse, rocky coast and mosque views |
| ▸ | Anfa and the Corniche — Pools, cafés, hotels and residential streets |
| ▸ | Royal Golf Anfa and the Hippodrome — Golf, horse racing and the former airfield district |
| ▸ | Habous Quarter — A planned new medina of arcades, mosques and craft shops |
| ▸ | Mohammed V Square — Administrative architecture, theater and central post office |
| ▸ | United Nations Square and the Zevaco Dome — Old market ground and modern public architecture |
| ▸ | Casablanca to Mohammed V International Airport — A3 motorway, Chaouia plain and Royal Air Maroc |
Map of Casablanca city tour (Link to full map)
Our ONCF train from Fes reaches Casablanca after dark. In daylight, the route opens from Casa-Voyageurs to the working port, Hassan II Mosque and the Atlantic districts before the airport road carries us south toward Nouaceur.
Method: ONCF train, petit taxi, grand taxi and Royal Air Maroc flight
Distance / Time: About 295 km by rail, one full city-tour day and about 30 km to the airport
Themes: Atlantic port city · Moroccan craft · twentieth-century planning · film mythology
Route at a Glance
- Gare de Fes and ONCF train 132
- Rabat and the Bou Regreg crossing
- Gare de Casa-Voyageurs
- Casa-Port and the Port of Casablanca
- Rick’s Café
- Hassan II Mosque
- El Hank and the Atlantic shore
- Ain Diab and the Corniche
- Anfa and the former airfield district
- Royal Golf Anfa and the hippodrome
- Habous Quarter
- Mohammed V Square
- United Nations Square and Place Al Yassir
- Mohammed V International Airport
Fes to Casablanca by Train
After our time inside Fes el-Bali, we board ONCF train 132 at Gare de Fes at 5:40 PM. The train runs west through Rabat to Gare de Casa-Voyageurs, turning a medieval-medina day into an evening of platforms, luggage and the reliable railway truth that arrival times are aspirations with uniforms.
 |
| Gare de Fes (Fez Railway Station) |
At 9:06 PM, the train passes Rabat and the Mohammed VI Tower rising across the Bou Regreg in Salé. In July 2023, the 250-meter tower was still under construction; its public opening came later. The train offered a useful preview and no possibility of asking the driver to pause for a better angle.
 |
| Mohammed VI Tower, Rabat |
The railway also crosses the Bou Regreg, the river separating Rabat from Salé before it reaches the Atlantic. A road bridge is visible from the carriage, but the moving train is better at supplying views than nameplates.
 |
| Bridge across the Bou Regreg River near Rabat |
Our train reaches Gare de Casa-Voyageurs at 10:30 PM, roughly an hour late. The station is a major Casablanca interchange for long-distance, regional and airport services, which makes it practical at an hour when poetry has gone to bed.
 |
| Casa Voyageurs Train Station - Gare de Casa-Voyageurs, Casablanca |
Casa-Voyageurs was rebuilt as a modern interchange, but its job remains old-fashioned: put travelers, luggage, trains and taxis in one place and hope they agree on timing. The forecourt is the first hint that Casablanca values movement over ceremony.
 |
| Casa Voyageurs Railway Station - Gare de Casa-Voyageurs, Casablanca |
The station opens directly toward hotels and city transport. ONCF made the trip from Fes straightforward; identifying the correct exit required the older navigation system known as looking around.
 |
| Gare de Casa-Voyageurs Casablanca |
Our Morocco journey had begun at the ONCF station at Mohammed V Airport, where we took trains toward Marrakech. Returning to Casablanca closes that rail loop, though the luggage shows no interest in symbolism.
It is late, so we collect food at the station and check into Hôtel Ibis Casa-Voyageurs across the road. Casablanca’s city tour can wait until morning; the paper route map cannot object.
 |
| Tour map of Casablanca listing attractions |
Casablanca: Port City and Modern Metropolis
Casablanca, often shortened to Casa and called Dar al-Bayda in Arabic, is Morocco’s largest city and principal commercial center. The Atlantic port drove its rapid growth, while twentieth-century planners, architects and migrants produced a city whose districts rarely agree on a single style. That disagreement is one of its better features.
Districts on Our Route
Casablanca is divided into many prefectures, districts and neighborhoods rather than eight tidy tourist quarters. Our route links the rail and port districts with El Hank, Ain Diab, Anfa, the central administrative squares and Habous before returning to Casa-Voyageurs.
From Anfa to Casablanca
Casablanca grew from Anfa, a medieval Atlantic port whose earlier origins remain debated. Portuguese forces destroyed Anfa in 1468, then established Casa Branca on the coast during the following century. The 1755 earthquake helped end that settlement, because even empires eventually meet geology.
Sultan Mohammed ben Abdallah rebuilt the town in the late eighteenth century and used the Arabic name Dar al-Bayda, “the White House.” European trade later popularized the Spanish form Casablanca.
During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, agricultural exports from the Chaouia plain, port construction and migration transformed Casablanca into a major industrial city. French Protectorate planning added broad avenues and modern districts beside older Moroccan urban forms.
From January 14 to 24, 1943, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill met in Casablanca for the Allied conference that announced the policy of demanding unconditional Axis surrender. The meeting took place in wartime Anfa, several months after Hollywood released a film that had already borrowed the city’s name.
A City Built from Several Casablancas
Casablanca’s culture reflects repeated migration from across Morocco, long-standing Jewish and European communities, port commerce and the city’s own working-class neighborhoods. Moroccan Arabic, French and Amazigh languages share streets with cafés, football loyalties, music and food from many regions.
The city’s major monuments belong to different periods: Hassan II Mosque represents a late-twentieth-century royal project, Habous reworks older Moroccan forms through colonial planning, and the central squares display Art Deco and neo-Moroccan civic architecture.
Cinema supplied Casablanca with a second identity. The 1942 film was made in Hollywood, while the modern Rick’s Café opened in 2004 and turned that borrowed mythology into a real address.
Food follows the city’s mixed population: seafood from the Atlantic, grilled meats, tagines, couscous, pastilla and café culture all appear along the route. A commercial capital needs lunch, even when the itinerary behaves as if it does not.
We spend the night at Hôtel Ibis Casa-Voyageurs across from the station. Breakfast and proximity do their jobs, and by 9 AM we are ready for a full circuit of Casablanca.
 |
| View of Gare de Casa-Voyageurs Train Station from Hotel Ibis Casa Voyageurs |
Railway hotels occupy a practical niche for late arrivals and early departures. Their romance lies mainly in not dragging luggage across an unfamiliar city at midnight, which is enough romance for most suitcases.
 |
| Entrance door of Hotel Ibis Casa Voyageurs |
Casa-Voyageurs links intercity trains with local taxis and the airport rail service. The station door therefore functions as a small border between national travel and Casablanca traffic, both of which have firm opinions about schedules.
 |
| Casa Voyageurs Railway Station Taxi Stand across Hotel Ibis Casa Voyageurs |
Petit and Grand Taxis in Casablanca
Moroccan cities distinguish between petit taxis, which operate inside city limits, and grand taxis, which can handle longer routes. Casablanca’s petit taxis are red, a useful detail when a station forecourt contains more vehicles than patience.
A large taxi stand faces Gare de Casa-Voyageurs. We hire Mohammad’s red petit taxi for a city circuit, and his local knowledge turns a simple ride into a full day across the port, coast, Anfa, Habous and the central squares. The route map records the result; the meter had a more immediate interest in it.
Casa-Port and the Port of Casablanca
We head toward the port along Rue Sidi Belyout, passing the adjoining Hôtel Ibis Casablanca City Center and Novotel Casablanca City Center.
 |
| Hotel Ibis Casablanca City Center & Novotel Casablanca City Center |
Next comes Gare de Casa-Port, Casablanca’s downtown terminus near the port and old medina. Regional trains connect it north toward Rabat and Kenitra, while Casa-Voyageurs carries a wider share of long-distance traffic.
 |
| Gare de Casa Port, Casablanca Train Station |
Port of Casablanca
The Port of Casablanca is one of Morocco’s principal commercial ports. Its terminals handle containers, conventional cargo, minerals and roll-on/roll-off traffic, with the official operator reporting annual throughput above ten million tonnes.
 |
| Port De Casablanca Porte 1: Port of Casablanca Terminal A |
The Préfecture de Casablanca building houses district administration and police functions beside the port. Its formal façade belongs to the civic architecture that grew with Casablanca’s commercial waterfront.
 |
| Préfecture de Casablanca - District du Port |
Rick’s Café and the Casablanca Film
The modern Rick’s Café opened in 2004 as a recreation of Rick’s Café Américain from Casablanca, the 1942 Michael Curtiz film starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. The movie was filmed in Hollywood, so this is an adaptation of a fictional place in a real city. The circle is complete enough to sell dinner under a name built on celluloid. Watch the film scene here.
 |
| Rick's Café Casablanca |
The film never contains the exact line “Play it again, Sam,” though the misquotation became more famous than most of the script. Casablanca has spent decades hosting a sentence Hollywood did not actually write.
Hassan II Mosque
 |
| Grande Mosquée Hassan II |
King Hassan II commissioned the oceanfront mosque, which opened in 1993 after work by thousands of Moroccan craftspeople. Stone, cedar, carved plaster, painted wood and zellij turn the huge complex into a national survey of traditional building arts rather than a structure decorated afterward as an afterthought.
 |
| Hassan II Mosque |
The mosque’s minaret rises about 210 meters and dominates this stretch of the coast. A laser near its summit points toward Mecca at night, giving the landmark a direction as well as a skyline. The Guinness record page tracks a category that changes whenever another mosque reaches higher.
 |
| مسجد الحسن الثاني |
The mosque stands partly over the Atlantic on a vast platform, reflecting a Quranic image of God’s throne upon the water. The location also created a less poetic engineering problem: salt, spray and waves had to be managed beneath a building intended to last.
 |
| Hassan II Mosque |
The prayer hall has a retractable roof that can open the interior to the sky while the Atlantic remains just beyond the walls. It is a modern mechanism serving a building rooted in older Moroccan craft.
 |
| Hassan II Mosque |
Public donations helped finance the mosque, a policy that remains debated because of the scale and pressure associated with the campaign. The project history records both national participation and the controversy; exact donor totals vary among retellings.
 |
| Hassan II Mosque |
The Musée de la Mosquée Hassan II explains the materials, craft methods and engineering used across the complex. Its displays make the finished ornament less mysterious and the labor behind it considerably harder to ignore.
 |
| Musée de la Mosquée Hassan II |
The complex also includes the Academy of Traditional Arts, inaugurated in 2012. Students study crafts such as wood carving, zellij, plasterwork, calligraphy and metalwork, keeping skills alive through training rather than nostalgia.
 |
| Academy of Traditional Arts, Hassan II Mosque, Casablanca |
Zellij is assembled from individually cut glazed pieces placed face down before being fixed into panels. The finished geometry appears effortless, which is the customary reward for work that required neither ease nor mercy.
 |
| Academy of Traditional Arts |
Visitor parking sits on the waterfront edge of the Hassan II Mosque complex, outside the broad pedestrian esplanade. The arrangement keeps ordinary traffic away from the prayer hall, which is useful because Casablanca traffic has no natural sense of reverence.
 |
| Hassan II Mosque parking area, Casablanca |
The parking area marks the edge of the ceremonial mosque precinct. Beyond it, Casablanca returns to ordinary traffic, cemetery walls and the practical business of finding the next turn.
 |
| Hassan II Mosque Parking P1 |
The second parking view shows how the complex separates vehicle circulation from the vast pedestrian esplanade. Friday prayers and major religious occasions can draw large crowds, so access planning is part of the mosque’s operation rather than an afterthought.
 |
| Boulevard de la Corniche & Rue du Cimetière intersection |
El Hank and Casablanca’s Atlantic Shore
El Hank forms a low peninsula west of Hassan II Mosque, giving us a broad view back across the water. The El Hank lighthouse has marked this coast since the early twentieth century, which is useful on a shoreline where Atlantic weather can erase architectural subtlety.
 |
| Hassan II Mosque and Casablanca shoreline view from El Hank Point |
The shoreline near El Hank is labeled Cabano Beach on some local maps. Rock shelves and dark boulders meet the Atlantic below the road, with Hassan II Mosque visible along the coast to the northeast.
 |
| Hassan II Mosque seen across the Atlantic from El Hank |
El Hank’s rocky shore contains wave-cut ledges and tide pools exposed by the Atlantic. Waves do the geological editing here, with no concern for pedestrian access.
 |
| Hassan II Mosque and Casablanca shoreline view from El Hank Point |
The shore is unexpectedly quiet during our July visit despite the clear weather. Empty parking spaces leave the Atlantic view to a small audience, which the Atlantic handles without complaint.
 |
| Cabano Beach looking north at el-Hank Point |
Anfa and the Corniche
We follow Boulevard de la Corniche past Complexe La Cascade, with the Atlantic on our right and Casablanca’s leisure frontage beginning to replace the working port.
 |
| Complexe La Cascade restaurant on Boulevard de la Corniche |
The Corniche developed as Casablanca’s leisure frontage, with cafés, pools and restaurants facing the ocean. Its social role matters as much as the buildings: this is where the commercial city comes to walk, drink coffee and inspect the sunset.
 |
| Boulevard de la Corniche: Complexe La Cascade restaurant |
Restaurants along the Corniche draw on Casablanca’s Atlantic position, with grilled fish, seafood and long café meals forming part of the coastal routine. The ocean supplies the view; Moroccan dining habits ensure nobody has to admire it on an empty stomach.
 |
| Boulevard de la Corniche, Casablanca |
Ain Diab became associated with sea bathing and nightlife during Casablanca’s twentieth-century growth. Private pools offered predictable water beside a coast whose surf and rocky ledges do not always cooperate with vacation vocabulary.
 |
| Boulevard de la Corniche |
At the Corniche junction, Driss Slaoui Boulevard and Habib Sinaceur Avenue meet the coastal road beside West.91 Café Brasserie and the Mercedes-Benz showroom.
 |
| Traffic Circle: Boulevard de la Corniche - Driss Slaoui Boulevard - Habib Sinaceur Avenue |
The popular public beach of Plage Lalla Meryem is on our right as we pass McDonald's Corniche and Anfaplace Mall.
 |
| Boulevard de la Corniche, Casablanca |
The boulevard follows the shore instead of forcing a straight grid onto it. Long ocean views alternate with bends, junctions and businesses advertising the same sunset from slightly different chairs.
 |
| Boulevard de la Corniche, Casablanca |
Casablanca’s coastal road mixes public promenade with private terraces and clubs. The Atlantic view is free; a preferred table, dry towel and shade are separate negotiations.
 |
| Boulevard de la Corniche, Casablanca |
Evening is the Corniche’s busiest social hour, when families, runners and café customers reclaim the promenade from the heat. The district’s rhythm belongs more to local routines than to sightseeing checklists.
 |
| Boulevard de la Corniche, Anfa |
At the Megarama traffic circle, Boulevard de la Corniche passes the Pestana Casablanca hotel, offices and coworking buildings. The minaret of Al-Saoud Mosque rises ahead as the road continues west.
 |
| Boulevard de la Corniche, Casablanca |
The coastal strip carries a layered history of swimming pools, music venues, restaurants and hotels. Buildings change names, but the combination of salt air and commercial optimism remains highly durable.
 |
| Boulevard de la Corniche |
Anfa’s villas say little about Morocco’s broader national income statistics, because a wealthy neighborhood and a countrywide category measure different things. We pass the walled compound of Palais des Al-Saoud.
 |
| Palais des Al-Saoud |
Anfa’s modern name carries older history: the medieval port of Anfa preceded colonial Casablanca by centuries. The district now associated with villas and diplomacy still sits over that earlier Atlantic identity.
 |
| Boulevard de la Corniche: Megarama Traffic Circle |
West of the Megarama traffic circle, we pass Restaurant Le Fèj, Mooja Tabac Store, Hotel Casablanca Le Lido, La Paillote and Tahiti Beach Club. Several terraces are quiet in the daytime heat; the Corniche keeps its busiest social hours for later.
 |
| Boulevard de la Corniche: Restaurant Le Fèj |
The Megarama junction adds cinema to a shore already crowded with cafés and clubs. Casablanca’s most famous film was made elsewhere, an arrangement the city has had eighty years to regard as slightly rude.
 |
| Boulevard de la Corniche: Mooja Tabac Store and Hotel Casablanca le Lido Thalasso & Spa |
Small stores beside large hotels show that the Corniche serves residents as well as visitors. A beach district still needs water, snacks and ordinary commerce, subjects rarely granted starring roles in travel posters.
 |
| Boulevard de la Corniche: La Paillote and Tahiti Beach Club |
Mohammad parks at a petit-taxi stand across from Piscine Tropicana and sends us west on foot toward McDonald’s Ain Diab. The short walk brings open Atlantic views, fresh air and a promenade with enough room to remember that cities can contain horizons.
 |
| Mohammed and his Dacia Sandero "Petit Taxi" at Petit Taxi Stand on Boulevard de la Corniche |
Petit taxis are city vehicles rather than tour buses, yet Mohammad turned his red Dacia into a rolling introduction to Casablanca. Local taxi knowledge is a form of urban scholarship with a meter attached.
 |
| Piscine Tropicana beside the Atlantic Ocean |
Seaside pools such as Tropicana borrowed the Atlantic as scenery while excluding its strongest waves. The compromise was practical, popular and commercially sound, three qualities oceans seldom provide together.
 |
| Piscine Tropicana beside the Atlantic Ocean |
Casablanca’s bathing clubs became social spaces for meals, music and family outings as much as for swimming. The water remained central, though many customers preferred to admire it from a chair.
 |
| Boulevard de la Corniche: Piscine Tropicana toward McDonald's Ain Diab |
Looking back along the coast, Hassan II Mosque anchors a skyline otherwise dominated by low leisure buildings. One minaret performs the work of several ordinary landmarks and does so without requesting road signs.
 |
| Boulevard de la Corniche, Ain Diab toward Hassan II Mosque |
Boulevard de la Corniche bends south past Hôtel Bellerive and becomes Avenue Côte d’Émeraude at Rond-Point Suisse, beside the Swiss Hotel.
 |
| Hotel Bellerive |
The Lido name reflects a twentieth-century habit of borrowing European seaside vocabulary for pools and resort districts far from Venice. Casablanca adopted the word and supplied its own Atlantic surf.
 |
| Hotel Suisse |
From Rond-point Suisse, we take Boulevard de l’Océan Atlantique and Boulevard de l’Océan Pacifique into Anfa’s low-density residential streets. Casablanca has named the route after two oceans while providing only one of them.
 |
| Bd de l'Océan Atlantique & Bd de l'Océan Pacifique |
Rte d’Anfa Supérieur leads past detached villas, walled gardens and planted setbacks before reaching the circular Aire d’Anfa. The street pattern announces privacy long before the gates do.
 |
| Rte d'Anfa Supérieur |
Upper Anfa replaces the Corniche’s commercial frontage with walls, hedges and detached villas. Quieter roads are part of the district’s design rather than evidence that Casablanca has misplaced its traffic.
 |
| Rte d'Anfa Supérieur & Bd du Lido traffic circle |
Anfa’s planted setbacks and curving streets differ sharply from the dense blocks of central Casablanca. The street plan advertises privacy before any gate has to say so.
 |
| Rue D'Anfa Supérieur |
The former Casablanca-Anfa airfield once made this district an aviation gateway. Commercial flights later moved to Mohammed V Airport, leaving road names, open tracts and urban redevelopment to carry the memory.
 |
| Rue D'Anfa Supérieur |
Nearby Anfa hosted the January 1943 Allied conference. World strategy was discussed behind guarded walls while the rest of Casablanca continued with work, food and the usual inconvenience of history happening locally.
 |
| Rue D'Anfa Supérieur into Aire D'Anfa |
Aire d’Anfa’s circular street geometry breaks from Casablanca’s rectilinear central grid. The junction distributes traffic through a low-density villa district shaped around privacy, planted setbacks and the memory of the former airfield nearby.
 |
| Aire D'Anfa |
From Aire d’Anfa, we continue by Rue Cor d’Anfa, Avenue Abou El Hassan Mrini and Rue Lice d’Anfa toward Royal Golf Anfa.
 |
| Av. Abou El Hassan Mrini |
Royal Golf Anfa and the Hippodrome
The Royal Golf Anfa course shares this green precinct with the Casablanca-Anfa hippodrome. The club lists a nine-hole layout played as an 18-hole, 5,537-meter, par-70 round, while the racecourse preserves another large open space inside the city.
 |
| Royal Golf Anfa, Casablanca |
Golf and horse racing introduced large recreation grounds into Anfa’s urban fabric. Whatever their social history, the courses preserve rare open space inside a city better known for density and concrete.
 |
| Royal Golf d'Anfa Casablanca |
The hippodrome belongs to formal racing rather than Morocco’s ceremonial tbourida, but both depend on long traditions of breeding and horsemanship. The horse has never required urban planners to explain its importance.
 |
| Hippodrome Casa-Anfa |
The nearby Cameo Cinema has also offered outdoor screenings. Casablanca acquired its global film reputation without hosting the production that created it, so local cinema is entitled to reclaim a little screen time.
Rue Lice d’Anfa reaches the Shell Kennedy–Franklin Roosevelt traffic circle, where roads named for two American presidents meet Avenue Habib Sinaceur. Casablanca has compressed international diplomacy into a roundabout.
 |
| Kennedy-Franklin Roosevelt-Habib Sinaceur-Lice d Anfa traffic circle |
We turn southeast on Franklin Roosevelt Boulevard, continue along Boulevard Moulay Rachid and join Boulevard Al Massira Al Khadra. The route carries us away from Anfa’s open grounds and back into denser commercial Casablanca.
 |
| Boulevard Moulay Rachid, Boulevard Al Massira Al Khadra, Boulevard Abdelkrim Al Khattabi (Morocco Route R320), Rue Bab Chellah, Rue Ali Abderrazak Traffic Circle |
Al Massira Al Khadra Boulevard carries us through a newer commercial district. The Casablanca Twin Center became a major skyline marker after opening in the late 1990s, and the same complex houses the Kenzi Tower Hotel.
 |
| Boulevard Al Massira Al Khadra |
Al Massira Al Khadra crosses a newer business district of offices, hotels and apartment towers. The tour has now become an urban cross-section rather than a coastal drive.
 |
| Onomo Hotel Casablanca City Center, Boulevard Al Massira Al Khadra & Rue Normandie |
The Onomo hotel corner reflects Casablanca’s growth as a regional business center. International branding arrives at street level; the traffic remains locally administered.
 |
| Casablanca Twin Towers, Boulevard Al Massira Al Khadra |
Ricardo Bofill designed the Twin Center with Moroccan architect Elie Mouyal. The paired towers rise from a shared commercial base, turning one busy junction into a vertical district of offices, shops and hotel rooms.
 |
| Kenzi Tower Hotel, Boulevard Al Massira Al Khadra |
Boulevard Al Massira Al Khadra continues as Boulevard Mohamed Zerktouni, part of Morocco’s N1 corridor. We pass the Institut français de Casablanca as the route turns toward Habous.
 |
| French Institute of Casablanca (Institut français de Casablanca) |
Casablanca’s broad boulevards were planned to connect the port, center and expanding suburbs. Boulevard Mohamed Zerktouni still performs that job under rather more traffic than its early planners had the courtesy to predict.
 |
| Mohamed Zerktouni Boulevard / Morocco National Route N1 |
We leave Boulevard Mohamed Zerktouni for Rue Mohamed Al Fidouzi near the Ibn Rochd University Hospital Center, one of Morocco’s major teaching-hospital complexes.
 |
| Ibn Rochd University Hospital Center (CHUIR / CHU Ibn Rochd) |
Rue Mohamed Al Fidouzi leads southeast into Habous, Casablanca’s planned “new medina,” near the Muhammadi Mosque and the Royal Palace. Arches, courtyards and shaded shopfronts replace the broader commercial boulevards behind us.
 |
| Rue de Provence, Habous, Casablanca |
Habous Quarter
Habous was planned and built mainly between 1917 and 1926 as a “new medina” for Casablanca’s growing Moroccan population. Its designers combined shaded streets, arcades, mosques, shops and courtyards with modern services and colonial planning. The result is neither an untouched old town nor a stage set; it is an early neo-Moroccan urban experiment that still functions as a commercial district.
 |
| Allée impériale, Habbous, Casablanca |
The Tribunal Administratif de Casablanca stands at the traffic circle in a formal civic building. Its scale and symmetry suit the administrative district rather well.
 |
| Tribunal Administratif de Casablanca |
Muhammadi Mosque and its gardens occupy the south side of the traffic circle, adding a religious and planted center to this planned administrative quarter.
 |
| Muhammadi Mosque & Mosquée Mohammadi Gardens |
Mohammad leaves us near Arabesque Bazaar on Rue Ibn Khaldoun and waits while we walk through the quarter.
We walk down Rue Ibn Khaldoun through the shops and arcades around Rue Sidi Oqba and Rue du Palais du Sultan, north of Moulay Youssef Mosque.
 |
| Rue Ibn Khaldoun, Habous Quarter |
Rue Ibn Khaldoun is named for the fourteenth-century North African historian whose Muqaddimah examined labor, taxation and the rise and decline of states. A market street is an unusually suitable memorial.
 |
| Rue Ibn Khaldoun, Habous Quarter |
Ibn Khaldun used asabiyyah for the social bonds that help communities gain and hold power. Habous merchants might prefer the shorter retail version: neighbors, reputation and repeat customers matter.
 |
| Rue Ibn Khaldoun, Habous Quarter |
The third view returns theory to practice. Goods move through arcades, customers compare prices and the planned quarter supports the daily exchange that keeps it alive.
 |
| Rue Ibn Khaldoun, Habbous |
Moulay Youssef Mosque dates from the early development of Habous. Its square minaret and restrained decoration borrow from older Moroccan precedents, including the Koutoubia tradition seen earlier in Marrakech, while serving a district planned in the twentieth century.
 |
| Moulay Youssef Mosque seen from Rue Sidi Oqba |
Sidi Oqba Street uses short blocks and repeated arches to create shade. The proportions imitate older Moroccan streets while leaving room for twentieth-century sanitation and access.
 |
| Rue Sidi Oqba |
The arches frame movement as well as façades, breaking the street into small visual rooms. Shade here is architecture doing useful work rather than posing for photographs.
 |
| Rue Sidi Oqba |
Toward the palace road, Habous becomes more formal. Royal, legal, religious and commercial functions were placed within one coordinated district, a remarkably ambitious task for any planner and an impossible one for most family group chats.
 |
| Rue Sidi Oqba & Rue du Palais du Sultan |
We circle back to Rue Ibn Khaldoun and pick up a couple of souvenirs from a crafts store.
 |
| Rue Ibn Khaldoun |
Habous craft shops often cluster related trades, echoing the organization of older souks. Leather, cloth, metal and wood develop their own concentrations instead of appearing at random.
 |
| Crafts shop off Rue Ibn Khaldoun |
The next shop shows the overlap between daily objects and souvenirs. A brass tray does not stop being Moroccan because somebody plans to carry it through airport security.
 |
| Crafts shop off Rue Ibn Khaldoun |
We return to Mohammad’s Dacia Sandero and leave Habous by Avenue 2 Mars. The Church of Notre Dame of Lourdes stands near the route. It is a church, not Casablanca’s cathedral, despite the larger title that sometimes follows it around.
 |
| Church of Notre Dame, Casablanca at left viewed from northbound Av. 2 Mars |
Avenue Mers Sultan leads toward Arab League Park, a central green space planned under Henri Prost and Albert Laprade during the early Protectorate period. The palms and long paths supplied Casablanca with an urban promenade before the automobile claimed most of the surrounding streets.
 |
| Av. Mers Sultan & ex Boulevard d'Alsace |
East of Arab League Park, we cross Rond-Point Mers Sultan, where Mers Sultan Avenue meets Rue Mostafa El Maani, Rue Allal Al Fassi, Boulevard Rahal El Meskini and Rue Hadj Omar Riffi.
 |
| Rond Point Mers Sultan |
Mers Sultan returns us to dense central Casablanca within a few turns. Apartment blocks, offices and traffic replace Habous’s planned intimacy with impressive efficiency.
 |
| Rond Point Mers Sultan |
The Morocco Chamber of Commerce and Industry stands at Mers Sultan and Rue du Prince Moulay Abdellah. Its civic scale reflects Casablanca’s role as the country’s commercial capital rather more clearly than another slogan could manage.
 |
| Chambre de Commerce et d'Industrie du Maroc (Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Morocco) |
Mohammed V Square
At Hassan II Avenue, we turn northeast toward Mohammed V Square, entering Casablanca’s main administrative district.
 |
| Hassan II Avenue toward Mohammed V Square |
Mohammed V Square developed as Casablanca’s main administrative plaza during the French Protectorate. The courthouse, prefecture and post office combine European planning with Moroccan decorative forms, while the pigeons maintain full control of the pavement and acknowledge no architectural authority.
 |
| Mohammed V Square & Palais de Justice |
The Grand Théâtre de Casablanca stands across Avenue Hassan II, designed by Christian de Portzamparc with Moroccan architect Rachid Andaloussi. Its sweeping white forms make the building difficult to mistake for an office block, which is a useful quality in a theater.
 |
| CasArts (Grand Théâtre de Casablanca) |
We continue north on Av. Hassan II to the intersection with Boulevard de Paris.
 |
| Av. Hassan II & Boulevard de Paris, Casablanca, Morocco, Africa |
The Barid Al-Maghrib central post office anchors the boulevard edge of the square. Completed during the early Protectorate period, it is one of the civic buildings that made Casablanca a laboratory for modern planning wrapped in Moroccan motifs.
 |
| Barid Al Maghrib (Poste Maroc) Central Post Office Casablanca |
We turn left into westbound Paris Boulevard and then right onto northbound Rue Abderrahmane Serghini.
 |
| Bd de Paris |
At Rue Abou Soufiane, the Casa Délice restaurant occupies an early twentieth-century commercial building with balconies and street-level arcades. The corner shows how ordinary businesses keep central Casablanca’s older architecture in daily use.
 |
| Cafe Chicha Casa Délice |
Rue Abderrahmane Serghini reaches the southern edge of United Nations Square through blocks of early twentieth-century commercial buildings. Banque Populaire occupies one of them, because architectural history still has accounts to balance.
 |
| Banque Populaire Sahraoui |
From Rue Abderrahmane Serghini, we turn west toward Boulevard Moulay Hassan I and then follow the square’s northern edge.
 |
| Bd Moulay Hassan I |
United Nations Square and the Zevaco Dome
United Nations Square occupies the meeting point between the old medina and the planned twentieth-century city. Before Place de France and its later name, the area was associated with Souq Kbir, the large market outside the medina walls.
Jean-François Zevaco designed the domed Kora Ardia structure in the 1970s. Its renovation reopened the landmark in 2021, preserving one of Casablanca’s more playful pieces of late-modern public architecture.
 |
| Coupole Zevaco / United Nations Square |
We continue by Hassan I Boulevard, Avenue des FAR and Rue Qortobi to Place Al Yassir in Belvédère. Boulevard Mohammed V, Boulevard Émile Zola, Rue Qortobi and Rue du Lieutenant Mohamed Mahroud meet at this busy tramway junction.
 |
| Place Al Yassir |
We cross Place Al Yassir and return to Hôtel Ibis Casa-Voyageurs. Mohammad’s petit taxi cannot take us to the airport because it is licensed for city service, so we thank him after a full day in which he served as driver, guide and determined ambassador for Casablanca.
Casablanca to Mohammed V International Airport
We check out of Hôtel Ibis Casa-Voyageurs and hire a grand taxi for Mohammed V International Airport near Nouaceur, about 30 kilometers south of central Casablanca. The drive uses the A3 corridor and crosses the cable-stayed Sidi Maârouf bridge.
 |
| A3 Casablanca-Agadir expressway |
The airport road crosses the Chaouia plain, the agricultural hinterland that fed Casablanca’s port growth. Grain and livestock once moved toward the city by slower routes; the expressway now carries travelers across the same country with less dust and more lane markings.
 |
| Casablanca to Mohammed V Airport on the A3 expressway |
Casablanca’s outward expansion follows transport corridors toward Nouaceur. Warehouses, housing and business parks occupy land that once separated the port city from smaller settlements on the plain.
 |
| Casablanca to Mohammed V International Airport on the A3 expressway |
Road signs replace city monuments as Mohammed V International Airport becomes the destination. The airport lies outside Casablanca proper near Nouaceur, despite carrying most of the city’s international passengers.
 |
| Casablanca to Mohammed V International Airport on the A3 expressway |
The motorway ties Casablanca’s business districts, industrial zones and airport together. It also reduces the journey to a sequence of exits, a format that geography accepts with limited enthusiasm.
 |
| Casablanca to Mohammed V Airport on the A3 expressway |
Toll roads brought divided carriageways and controlled access to long-distance travel in Morocco. They also created the small ritual of finding the ticket just after everyone agreed it was safely stored.
 |
| Casablanca to Mohammed V International Airport on the A3 expressway |
Freight traffic reflects Casablanca’s commercial role. Containers, airport cargo and industrial supplies share the corridor with taxis whose passengers are studying departure times.
 |
| Casablanca to Mohammed V Airport on the A3 expressway |
Wheat and barley from the Chaouia plain feed the bread and couscous eaten across the region. The same agricultural belt that supplied Casablanca’s export trade also supplied its daily table, which is the more dependable form of infrastructure.
 |
| Casablanca to Mohammed V International Airport on the A3 expressway |
Nouaceur now includes logistics and aerospace industries clustered near the airport. The approach is a working economic corridor rather than empty land waiting for a terminal.
 |
| Casablanca to Mohammed V International Airport on the A3 expressway |
Interchanges near Sidi Maârouf connect the airport route with southern Casablanca. The cable-stayed bridge carries traffic over one of the city’s busiest southern junctions.
 |
| Sidi Maârouf Bridge Casablanca |
As the city thins, construction gives way to broader fields and logistics compounds. Casablanca releases the traveler slowly, as if checking that no final errand has been forgotten.
 |
| A3 expressway toward Mohammed V International Airport |
Airport traffic mixes cars, buses, taxis and hotel shuttles. Every driver follows the same signs while maintaining an independent theory about the fastest lane.
 |
| A3 expressway toward Mohammed V International Airport |
Service areas support regional traffic and airport runs. Coffee remains part of the transport system, although civil engineers continue to omit it from motorway diagrams.
 |
| A3 expressway toward Mohammed V International Airport |
Closer to the terminal, aircraft replace minarets and towers as navigation points. Mohammed V Airport grew from a former wartime airfield into Morocco’s principal international gateway.
 |
| A3 expressway toward Mohammed V International Airport |
The last junctions make lane choices suddenly important. Casablanca has saved one final traffic decision for departure, a gesture of admirable consistency.
 |
| A3 expressway toward Mohammed V International Airport |
The terminal road completes the loop begun at Casa-Voyageurs. Train, taxi, motorway and aircraft form one journey even when each transfer behaves like a separate administrative kingdom.
 |
| A3 Casablanca-Agadir expressway: Casablanca to Mohammed V International Airport (CMN) |
At the terminal, we board a Royal Air Maroc Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner for the flight home. Casablanca is the airline’s main hub for African, European and transatlantic routes, so the departure board covers rather more geography than our luggage would prefer.
 |
| Royal Air Maroc Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner |
Casablanca closes the Morocco portion of this July 2023 Pan-Africa journey with a useful correction to its own legend. The city is less a film set than a working Atlantic metropolis built from port trade, migration, royal projects and urban experiments that still sit beside one another without pretending to be identical.
Our next published story jumps to a separate journey in December 2023: a Christmas-week homecoming in Kolkata, including Mother House, Kumartuli, Victoria Memorial and Tangra. Morocco and Bengal are not consecutive road stops. The blog calendar has simply changed continents without filing the usual paperwork.
