Moulay Bousselham, Asilah and a little of Rabat -- in pictures

Dear Americans, want to know what the Atlantic Ocean looks like from the other side? Read on.

JW and LW, an American couple living here for a year with their two daughters, invited T and me to go on a trip to the beach  with them over the weekend. These are the towns we visited:


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Moulay Bousselham is so small that it doesn't even show up on Google Maps, but the marker on the above map shows you approximately where it is.

Asilah is not even an hour's drive north of Moulay Bousselham, not far from Tangier.


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We stayed at Driftwood Apartments in Moulay Bousselham for two nights.

View of Driftwood Apartments from the street

These cows walked through town each morning to rummage through the garbage across the street from where we were staying. This was part of our view from the balcony of our apartment. It was more entertaining than it might seem, although the meat-eaters amongst us (i.e. everyone but me) were a bit disturbed to see their future dinner eating garbage.

 The beach was spectacular. I especially enjoyed searching for crabs, fish, and shells with the girls during low tide.

LW with Sandy the dog, who adopted us during our time in Moulay Bousselham. Did I mention that there are a lot of feral and homeless cats and dogs in Morocco?

T, as if you didn't know

We loved Moulay Bousselham enough that we are already plotting our return, but I think I have to say that my experience in Asilah made it my favorite Moroccan town or city thus far. It is a community of artists, and the medina is full of beautiful artwork--some of it painted right on the buildings. It is a low-key, open, and peaceful medina, especially compared to the one in Fes.

 After walking around the medina, we ate dinner outdoors at Al Kasabah, where I had a divine vegetable tagine and T had his first taste of bestila (I think there are at least half a dozen ways to spell that).

On the drive home, we stopped briefly in Rabat. We had lunch at the mega mall, where I ordered tofu at a Japanese restaurant. It was silken tofu, which I usually dislike, but it tasted wonderful. We also briefly visited the medina and then had some ice cream by the river.

T with JW and LW in the Rabat medina

I loved the colorful boats in the river.

If I remember correctly, Sale is the city that you can see across the river here.

We drove home on Sunday evening with the sun setting, tired but with a feeling of fullness and blessedness. How lucky we are to know such a wonderful and generous family, and to live in such a beautiful country!