Rabat: Morocco's Quiet Capital — Complete Travel Guide

The Imperial City People Skip

Rabat is Morocco's capital, one of its four imperial cities, and the one most visitors drive straight past on the way between Casablanca and Fes. That is the reason to go.

Where Marrakech sells you something every thirty seconds and Fes can feel like a test of nerve, Rabat is a working administrative city that happens to hold nine centuries of architecture. Nobody follows you through the medina. The kasbah is residential, not a stage set. You can stand at the Hassan Tower on a Tuesday morning and have the esplanade largely to yourself.

The historic core has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2012 — a listing that covers both the old city and the French colonial town beside it, which is unusual and tells you something about how Rabat is built in layers rather than rings.

The Kasbah des Oudayas

This is the oldest and best part of the city, and it is free.

The kasbah sits on a bluff where the Bou Regreg river meets the Atlantic. Its origins are Almoravid, but the fortress you walk into is essentially Almohad: the 12th century is when it took its present shape, and the main mosque inside dates from around 1150. The monumental gate, Bab Oudaia, is one of the finest surviving pieces of Almohad military architecture anywhere — carved geometric and vegetal stonework wrapped around an arch built to stop an army.

The blue-and-white lanes inside are the photograph everyone takes. They are also somebody's street: the kasbah is lived in, so keep your voice down and ask before photographing doorways.

Two things worth knowing:

The Andalusian Gardens are not Andalusian. They are beautiful — orange trees, fountains, geometric paths inside ochre walls — but they were laid out in the early 20th century, not by the Moriscos who resettled here in the 1600s. Most guides get this wrong. The Andalusian contribution to the kasbah is real, it is just in the buildings rather than the flowerbeds.

Café Maure is worth the stop. It sits on the terrace above the river mouth, mint tea is cheap, and the view across to Salé is the one that stays with people.

Give the kasbah 1.5 to 3 hours. Free to enter, and you can wander it at any reasonable hour.

Hassan Tower and the Mausoleum of Mohammed V

An unfinished minaret and a finished masterpiece, facing each other across a field of broken columns.

The tower was begun in 1195 and abandoned when the sultan died. It was meant to be the largest minaret in the world, attached to the largest mosque; what stands is 44 metres of the intended 86, surrounded by the stumps of 348 columns that never held a roof. An earthquake took the rest in 1755.

Opposite it, the Mausoleum of Mohammed V is the opposite proposition: 20th century, finished to an extraordinary standard, and open to visitors. Carved cedar, zellij tilework, an onyx sarcophagus under a dome. Royal guards stand at the entrances in full dress and are used to being photographed.

Open daily 9am to 6pm. Free entry, both sites. Dress respectfully — this is a working royal mausoleum, not a museum. Allow an hour.

The site is lit at night, and the walk past it after dark is one of the better things you can do in Rabat for free.

The Chellah

The strangest place in the city, and the one people remember.

The Chellah is a walled necropolis built on top of a Roman town. The Romans called it Sala Colonia and left a forum, a triumphal arch and a main street you can still walk. The Merinids arrived in the 14th century, walled the whole thing, and buried their sultans inside it — so you get Roman paving leading to a Merinid minaret, with a mosque and a zaouia in between, all of it slowly returning to the ground.

Storks nest on the ruins. In spring the noise of them is the defining sound of the place, and the nests on top of the minaret are the photograph.

Entry is 70 DH, or 120 DH with an audioguide. Moroccans and foreign residents pay half. Allow 1.5 hours, and go late in the afternoon when the light is low and the storks are active.

The Medina and the Rest

Rabat's medina is small, tidy, and refreshingly free of hard selling. It is a place to buy something you actually want rather than something you have been talked into. Rue des Consuls is the main craft street.

If you have a second day: the Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art is genuinely good and the only museum of its kind in the country, and the rowboat crossing of the Bou Regreg to Salé costs a few dirhams and takes five minutes.

How Long Rabat Needs

One full day covers the three big sites — kasbah in the morning, Hassan Tower before lunch, Chellah in the late afternoon. That is the standard imperial-cities itinerary and it works.

Two days adds the medina, the museum, Salé, and the time to sit still, which is the thing Rabat is actually good for.

Most tours give it a day, and for a first visit that is honest rather than mean. The city rewards a slow morning more than a long list.

When to Come

Spring (March to May) and autumn (September to November) are the best months: mild, clear, and the storks are at the Chellah in spring. Rabat is Atlantic rather than Saharan, so summers are far softer than Marrakech and winters are grey and wet rather than cold. There is no bad month, only wetter ones.

Getting There

Rabat sits on the main line between Casablanca and Tangier, and the train is genuinely good — roughly an hour from Casablanca, around four and a half from Marrakech. The station is central.

If you are travelling the imperial cities as a circuit, Rabat usually falls between Casablanca and Meknes, which is the natural geographic order and the one our routes follow. Our 5-day imperial cities tour from Marrakech covers Rabat, Meknes and Fes with the driving handled and entry fees included, and the 6-day version from Agadir does the same from the coast. For the practical alternatives, our guide to getting around Morocco compares trains, buses and private transfers by route.