"everybody goes to Rick's"

and so do we- for lunch on our first day in Morocco... in Casablanca... our lunch was a combo of continental and local... GA had chicken tagine and I have a pasta dish with fish...

and here are the photos - all very atmospheric...

of course homage is paid to the movie-

and it runs on an endless loop in the bar/casino room upstairs...

the parking out front- and yeah, tourists go here all the time- but how many times in your life to do you get to imagine Bogey upstairs with the letters of transit in his dinner jacket- waiting to help someone get the late night flight to Lisbon?  so worth it!

we take a driving tour of other city neighborhoods and Aziz asks Mustafa to stop at Place Mohamed V but I am falling asleep in the back and my two hours for last night and the quick nap this morning have made it imperative that I find a bed pretty much immediately- so we pass on a walk around Place M5 and head back to the Hotel Doge - where I am asleep before my head hits the pillow... we meet up for dinner later that evening (early 7:30 reservation for Saturday night at the Relais et Chateaux place in the hotel) no real recollection of dinner- I think I had fish...LOL - up early tomorrow for a full day of Rabat touring and a drive on to Fes (our next hotel stop for three nights)- onward.... come back and join in the fun....

to market, to market

so we left the mosque and headed to the Corniche (known as the Malecon in Havana LOL) or to those of us who live in Chicago - Lake Shore Drive... but of course here it is the road that runs along the Atlantic Ocean coast.  many bars and cafes have suffered horrible damage with repetitive storms this winter... we see some of the beach clubs (or what's left of them) as we walk along the ridge overlooking the ocean.

the surf is quite turbulent and agressive-

a menu from one of the still standing cafes-

from there we headed to the central market - lots of fresh fish and shellfish and seafood--- many olives - "mandarines" are also in season... and during the trip we eat many many of them along with lots of dates and tons of olives - and remark upon the idea of dates and olives for breakfast!

a general grocery store-

the oysters looked fabulous to an oyster lover like me!

and as night follows day - we were getting hungry and asked about a place to eat....Aziz tells us that Rick's is nearby and we know "everybody goes to Rick's" so we select it for our first lunch in Morocco.

But first one more photo-  of some of the cats in the markets - there were three in the Casablanca market and a few others showed up along the way- so I consolidated them into one big photo-