Moroccan culture

Morocco has a wonderfully varied landscape. The Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea (with 2,500 kilometres of coastline), mountains, forests, desert, snow. Villages where time has stood still for centuries, and modern metropolises with millions of inhabitants. Crowded roads, but also sandy tracks where donkeys carry the loads.

Because Morocco was a French protectorate for many years, French is spoken almost everywhere. The French have long considered Morocco a wonderful holiday destination, and fortunately the Dutch have discovered it too. The tours of the royal cities of Rabat, Fez, Meknes and Marrakesh are famous. The king has a palace in each of these cities and there is a great deal of history to experience. Every city has its own folklore, with distinctive colours that return in the tilework and tableware. In all the royal cities you can wander around for days and keep marvelling at things large and small. Fez has the largest medina with the narrowest streets; Meknes lies close to Volubilis, an enormous Roman city; Rabat is the capital and very modern. Marrakesh is wonderfully lively, with tourists and Moroccans enjoying this special city side by side. And Marrakesh has Chez Ali, the largest restaurant in Morocco, where folklore and food culture fill an entire evening.

On the coast of Casablanca stands the second-largest mosque in the world. Every Moroccan contributed to it. Casablanca is the economic capital (home to more than 4 million people) and has a beautiful sandy beach and a boulevard stretching for kilometres. On summer evenings tens of thousands of people enjoy the boulevard with its restaurants, bars and entertainment. Most bars serve no alcohol, as religion forbids it for Muslims, but there are plenty of restaurants where you can enjoy a nice (Moroccan) beer or glass of wine.

Follow the coast south from Casablanca and after El Jadida and Safi you reach Essaouira, a beautiful fortified town (everything in blue) where many artists live and work. Further south lies Agadir, the best-known seaside resort. The city was destroyed by an earthquake in 1960 and completely rebuilt afterwards; here you will find magnificent sandy beaches and many hundreds of hotels, each one bigger and more beautiful than the last.

A lovely thing about travelling here is the local produce offered along the route. Vegetables and fruit, fish, buttermilk, you name it, and always dozens of sellers waiting for passers-by to stop and buy.

In Leenderstrijp I have of course kept embracing Moroccan culture. Together with my Dutch husband and my children we live multiculturally. What we certainly share is hospitality, and you will experience what that means when you are our guest!