On Friday Tiffany, Rafael and I took the train to Casablanca, where they had a fun filled morning with bureaucracy and passport issues at the American consulate. In the meantime, I went off to see the Hassan Mosque, the third biggest mosque in the world and biggest one open to non-Muslims. I was very excited because I had never been inside a mosque before and was intrigued to see the inside of it.
The mosque is only accessible via guided tours at specific times of the day since it is also “in action”, so it is used 5 times a day for prayer. I was lucky and after I just missed the 9AM tour, we were a small group of about 15 people who got a little private tour around 9.15 instead of having to wait until 10.
The tower of the mosque is 200 meters high and at night it shines a big green laser beam in the direction of Mecca. It was designed by a Frenchman and built by the French company Bouygues, who also built the channel tunnel and the musee d’orsay. The inside of the mosque is 200m long and 100m wide, with very shiny marble everything and fluffy carpets to walk around on. The mosque has no aircon and since it fits thousands of devotees, the roof can slide open completely to allow for ventilation when it is busy at prayer time. The king has his own massive gate and private enclosed prayer spot in the centre of the mosque, but apparently he only comes to this mosque once a year. The inside of the mosque was very beautiful with ornaments of cedar wood, marble, gold and big chandeliers hanging from the beams. The men pray on the bottom floor, the women have a sort of balcony on either side of the mosque where they can come to pray.
Before though, they have to complete the ritual washing which is done downstairs, again separated by gender, in specific washrooms underneath the main hall of the mosque.
Our tour finished after about 45 minutes and spent about another hour just walking around outside the mosque and looking out over the sea, since the mosque is built right over the Atlantic ocean.
After little stroll around the town, which was busy and apparently under permanent construction, I walked past “Rick’s Cafe” from the movie Casablanca and it was so underwhelming I was glad the train ticket had only cost 9 euros.
But it was still a nice little daytrip and I met Tiffany and Rafael back and the train station, where we gave in and went to McDonald’s.... I ordered a veggie burger at the till because I could not find it on the touchscreen-order thing and ended up getting: a burger bun with a slice of cheese, one salad leaf and a sliced tomato. It was not that didn’t find the veggie option, there did not seem to be one.
