Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
WEST MEDITERRANEAN COAST
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Tangier
POP 850,000
Always of huge strategic importance at the entrance to the Mediterranean, Tangier is the
enthralling gateway to Africa, a tantalising introduction to a culture vastly different from
that across the Strait of Gibraltar.
After WWII, Tangier became an International Zone that attracted eccentric foreigners,
artists, spies and hippies. The city fell into neglect and dissolution, gaining a dismal reputa-
tion thanks to the sleaze and hustles that beset every arrival. But now the white city has
turned over a new leaf, and is looking to the future with renewed vigour.
With the arrival of the new monarch in 1999 and his forward-thinking ideas about com-
merce and tourism, suddenly the community woke up to the potential of this great city.
There's a spanking new port of enormous proportions, a new business district and a re-
vamped airport. Buildings have been renovated, beaches cleaned up and hustlers chivvied
off the streets. There's an explosion of cultural activities as well as some great places to
stay and excellent restaurants.
Tangier is divided into an old walled city, or medina, a nest of medieval alleyways, and a
new, modern city, the ville nouvelle. The medina contains a kasbah, the walled fortress of
the sultan, which forms its western corner; the Petit Socco (also known as Socco Chico and
Souq Dakhel), a historic plaza in the centre; and of course, the souqs, or markets. The much
more impressive Grand Socco (officially renamed Pl du 9 Avril 1947), a pleasant square
with a central fountain, is the hinge between the two sides of town, and the postcard en-
trance to the medina.
History
Tangier's history is a raucous tale of foreign invasion, much of it driven by the city's stra-
tegic location at the entrance to the Mediterranean. The area was first settled as a trading
base by the ancient Greeks and Phoenicians (who brought the traditional Moroccan hooded
robe, the jellaba, with them), and named for the goddess Tinge, the lover of Hercules,
whose Herculean effort separated Europe from Africa to form the Strait of Gibraltar. Under
