CASABLANCE 12/25/2012

We had a four day Christmas vacation and decided to fly to exotic and historic Morocco and its financial center, Casablanca. You probably all know of the movie "Casablanca" with Humphrey Bogart (Rick) and Ingrid Bergman...of "Here's looking at you kid", and "Play it again , Sam" fame. Well, we visited Rick's Bar and Cafe to experience the place that is built and decorated to be similar to the one in the movie...it is run by a woman from Lake Oswego (go figure) who we met and talked with while enjoying dinner, music and drinks. A lot of fun for us. The other big sight in the city is the Hassan II Mosque that you can see in the other two photos...it is not old, but is VERY impressive and beautiful. It is one of the world's largest mosques and can accomodate 25,000 worshipers inside and another 80,000 on the huge deck outside. We enjoyed the large city with the ancient medina (center of the old town with its market) which is surrounded by the old stone wall. It was a quick trip, but well worth it....and we took a day trip to Marrakech while there (next blog)>