South of Casablanca, the Atlantic coast holds two towns that still carry Morocco’s Portuguese history in their stone: El Jadida, the UNESCO-listed citadel the Portuguese called Mazagão, and Azemmour, a smaller fortified river port half an hour up the coast. On this full day from Casablanca you’ll walk the ramparts, cisterns and mellahs of both towns, with a stop at the Hassan II Mosque and a seaside lunch along the way.

Highlights

  • The Hassan II Mosque, one of the largest mosques in the world, built out over the Atlantic on Casablanca’s shoreline
  • Azemmour’s walled medina and Jewish Mellah, with the historic synagogue of Rabbi Abraham Moul Niss
  • El Jadida’s UNESCO World Heritage Portuguese City, ringed by four 3-metre-thick bastions
  • The Portuguese Cisterns — a Roman-built, Portuguese-adapted underground reservoir made famous by Orson Welles’ Othello
  • The Porto do Mar sea gate, the old communal bakery, and the Bastion of St Sebastian with its former prison and Inquisition tribunal
  • A relaxed lunch at the 5-star Sofitel Royal Golf Hotel

Your Day in El Jadida & Azemmour

Straight off the ship, we head to Casablanca’s Hassan II Mosque for around 25 minutes at one of the largest religious monuments in the world — seventy-eight pillars of granite, marble and onyx, a retractable roof, and a 210-metre minaret facing Mecca. From there it’s an hour’s drive down the Corniche to Azemmour, a once-Carthaginian, once-Portuguese port town whose name means “wild olive” in Berber.

We spend around 50 minutes walking Azemmour’s medina, where ochre walls give way to whitewash, blue and yellow, and bougainvillea spills over the old ramparts. The Dar el Baroud bastion — the Portuguese powder store — guards the ruined kasbah, and we take in the Arab Medina and the Jewish Mellah, including the still-used synagogue of Rabbi Abraham Moul Niss.

A picturesque 45-minute drive down the coast brings us to El Jadida around 11am, where we break for a light lunch — buffet or set menu, with water, wine, tea or coffee — at the 5-star Sofitel Royal Golf Hotel.

After lunch, a 90-minute guided walk takes in El Jadida’s Portuguese City, retaken from Portugal in 1769. We start at the old fortress and the misnamed “Portuguese Cisterns” — actually built by the Romans as a grain store, later used by the Portuguese as a freshwater reservoir, rediscovered by accident in 1977, and the set for the riot scenes in Orson Welles’ Othello. From there we continue to the Porto do Mar sea gate and its communal bakery, then to the Bastion of St Sebastian, once home to the town’s prison and the Tribunal of the Inquisition, before finishing at the Mellah and its early-19th-century synagogue.

We return to Casablanca and your ship by around 5:30pm. Depending on your sailing schedule, the Azemmour stop can be dropped from the itinerary, and total walking time runs to around two hours.

What’s Included

  • Private round-trip transportation in an air-conditioned vehicle, Casablanca to Casablanca
  • Private guided sightseeing and all entrance fees listed in the itinerary
  • An English-speaking licensed national guide throughout
  • Medical and accident insurance
  • Light lunch and bottled or sparkling water en route

Not Included

  • Gratuities for your guide, driver and restaurant staff
  • Personal expenses
  • Anything not specifically listed in the itinerary

What to Bring

  • Comfortable walking shoes or trainers
  • A hat and light layer (seasonal)
  • A day pack and hygienic wipes
  • Camera, with a protective bag for the coastal air
  • Sunglasses and sunscreen

Book This Excursion

Send us your ship and port call time and we’ll confirm your private El Jadida & Azemmour excursion. Reach us on WhatsApp at +212 677 365 730 or send an inquiry to get a quote.

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