Coffee by the sea, Asilah. December 2019
Street art, Asilah. December 2019
One of the recommended day-trips from Tangier was the little artist-colony, Asilah, down the coast on the old railway line. The ride was about a hour and was through endless, rolling fields of agriculture - certainly not my image of Morocco!! The station was actually some distance from the old city and right along the beach. As in travels many times before, I walked down a lonely road into town.
Asilah was a medieval fortress town with intact walls and gates. The beaches were amazing, wide, and upspoilt. The waves of the North Atlantic crashed onto the strand - it looked to be a perfect surfing location. A guy with a lone camel stood on the beach all decked out in traditional garb (the camel not the guy!) for tourists to get a photo sitting on the camel by the sea. He had cornered that market, but in January there were also no visitors. After finding the main gate into the old city, I entered.
Asilah of today mostly dates from the city built by the Portuguese after they conquered it from the Idrisids in 1471. They had established a city there in the late 900s (!) and nearby there are even older Roman and Phoenician remains. The reason everyone loves Asilah, though, is not due to its history nor its being a cute little walled city on the sea, it is due to its forward thinking mayor!
A major plan to restore the town was undertaken in 1978 by its mayor, Mohamed Benaissa. Benaissa and painter Mohamed Melehi were instrumental in organizing an art festival, the International Cultural Moussem of Asilah, that starting in 1978 began generating tourism income. It is credited with having promoted urban renewal in Asilah, and is one of the most important art festivals in the country.
(Wikipedia)
"Build it and they will come". OK, the town was pretty much a perfect place waiting for someone like Mohamed B. to realize its potential, but back in 1978 world tourism was different. That was pre-internet when we all travelled via recommendations from travel agents, friends, or guide books. The town took a gamble and won! The old city could be any old city center from Europe these days - it was filled with restaurants and homestays. The signboards outside those businesses were in French, Spanish, German, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese. Everyone, it seemed, visited Asilah.
The houses were all brightly painted - mostly white or blue, and there were all kinds of drawings and murals along its narrow alleyways. This was one time I felt sad to visit in the off-season - I thought a bustling Asilah must have been quite the happening place! I heard of people retiring there, but it seemed just too far off the grid for my taste. A few months out of the year, yes! The rest of my life? I was not so sure. I had a lovely coffee just outside the walls on a bluff overlooking both the city bastions and the sea. It was one of the best café locations of my trip to Morocco!
Definitely another place I wouldn't mind returning just to chill out and eat nice food for a week or two...
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