Sunday in El Jadida

It had been my first sightseeing/tourist trip since September. It's been way too much time. Luckily, I managed to see France, Spain and Portugal in the meantime. But besides that I was only in Rabat or Casa. So about week earlier I decided to move my ass from Rabat and start filling my must-see list of places in Morocco. I told all my friends here that I was planning to go to El Jadida the next Sunday. I would do it with them or alone. It didn't matter to me. I just needed a change of the environment and air. And I ended up there with my dear Mona (ex flat mate). We had a really great time.

El Jadida is a small city at the seaside around 2h by train from Casa and 3h from Rabat. It used to be inhabited (and built as well I suppose) by the Portuguese in XV-XVII centuries. Then they were kicked out by Arabs but the influences have luckily remained. Even the names of the streets in the oldest parts are still written in Portuguese.

We took the morning train at 9 am and arrived in El Jadida before the noon (too lazy to take the 7 am one :). The first view of the city was not impressive though. Just an ordinary Arab city. Nice but nothing special. Then we went to the old Portuguese fortress that was really cool. Afterwards, we took a bus and went to the summer resort called Sidi Bouzik. The beach was beautiful. Along it a lot of gorgeous villas - most of them empty which means that they are only rented by tourists in the summer. Now, I have an idea what I will do when I feel like spending a lot of money and having a lazy summer :) Then we took a cab and came back to the train station to catch the last train. We were so hungry so we were there an hour before to take our time and have some food. There was only one "restaurant" at the train station and they had only one pack of crisps... Since the train station is in the middle of nowhere we had to walk a while and admire these views until we reached a shop where we bought loads of food paying only 20 dirhams (less than 2 euro). I ate half of it on the way back to the train station :)

ahhh, that was a cool trip and I'm already thinking of the next one ;)