April 30th:
Our tour plan for Casablanca was an all day tour to Marrakech, Morocco. On April 28th, terrorists attacked a cafe frequented by tourists killing 18 people. Princess canceled our tour so we substituted a tour of Casablanca and Rabat. We were disappointed that we couldn’t visit Marrakech, but believed the cancelation was the right decision.
In Casablanca, we toured an old section of town and the King Hussan Mosque.
The mosque is the second largest in the world. Only the mosque in Mecca is larger. This is the only mosque in Morocco that allows non Muslims inside. The mosque is impressive. The capacity of the mosque is 20,000 inside with an additional 80,000 outside on the paved areas.
Men worship on the main floor and women on the second floor.
The minaret is the tallest in the world. It is also square. Other mosques outside Morocco are round. One corner of the mosque is aimed at Mecca.
One hour and one half north of Casablanca is Rabat. Rabat is the capital of Morocco and one of the four royal cities in Morocco. The royal palace in Rabat is the home of Morocco’s King and Princess. While the king has a residence in the other three royal cities, he normally resides in Rabat. We were not able to visit the inside of the palace.
After the palace, we visited the site of the King Mohammed V Mausoleum. We toured the interior and the site.
The site of the mausoleum was also the site of a partially built mosque. The minaret and masque was never completed because the King who started construction died and subsequent kings choose not to complete the construction.
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