A mosque in any other city, is smaller than this one

Hakeem picked us up promptly at 9:30 for a half-day tour of Casablanca.  Although the hotel concierge was careful to ask our language preference, I guess the closest thing he had to English was French, so Hakeem and I did our best to communicate in broken sign language.  Its fun to try and use French, and surprising how much you can come up with when you have no other option. 

Casablanca is not a world class tourist city.  The biggest attraction is the Mosque.  And what a big attraction it is, a real challenge for the eye, the mind, and any wide-angle lens.

This is the largest mosque in the world outside of Mecca.  100,000 faithful can worship here at one time.  The pictures cannot do it justice.  There is not one surface that is average or undecorated.  The square is covered in travertine marble with stips of contrasting granite. We're talking acres of marble here.

After the mosque visit, we went over to the Corniche and visited the high society.  The Sauds (they have a kingdom named after thm) have a small summer home here that takes up maybe a couple of acres.  This neighborhood is a dead ringer for 90210.  We also visited a public market, like a Safeway only rustic.  The side-of-beef is hanging there in the air, on display.  You pick the hunk you want.  The fish are iced and the veggies are fresh and beautiful.

People are intrigued by the fact that we are Americans.  This is primarily a Franco-European vacation spot, so when you tell people that you are from San Francisco, they ask if that is near LA.  How rude...