Tangier

[birddog]

Why Tangier?

Because it's a goldmine of French 1930's original architecture. The film "Casablanca" used the "El Hotel Minzah" in Tangier as the model for Rick's Cafe.

Walking around there now, you'll find it was indeed a rich place as a French freeport prior to WW II. On the streets you'll see mind blowing cafes, hotels & bars with original fittings and furniture as they were built.

Sadly, today Tangier is a poor place so everything is run down & seedy. Check into the hotel "Luticia" on a side street. Get a room on the top floor overlooking the harbor. Enjoy the stained matress, lack of hot water, the owner who's a cross between Peter Lorre & Sydney Greenstreet & the dubious single Morrocian ladies sipping mineral water in the bar at night. In the late morning have a coffee at the Cafe du Paris & watch the world for a few hours, & think that the cafe used to be a hub of questionable transactions before political correctness infected the world. If the joint was on South Beach, you'ld pay five bills for a night instead of $20.

And keep your wallet in an inside buttoned pocket.........

Birddog

 

[cookie]

I am a bit obsessive re Morocco even though I have never been there. I even cook the food ...the tagines.. the full catastrophe... but that report is spot on with what I have been told that Tangier is the worst of all the big cities in Morocco to visit and stay and exactly as you describe. To be avoided even....

 

[warbird]

Much of Morocco is a rather disgusting place, with thieves and pickpockets running rampant.

 

[PADDY]

I used to frequent Tangier quite a bit.

I worked in Gibraltar for a couple of years and often took the ferry across. It's like going back in time when you get over there!

You just have to go into 'tactical' mode when you are out on the streets (but you settle into it pretty quickly).

 

[Hemingway Jones]

I love the idea of the city as described above. Does anyone have any photos, contemporary or historic? Any photos with Loungers there?

 

[dhermann1]

I read a book by Steven Webb called "Lord Churchill's Coup", about how Winston Churchill's famous ancestor helped perpetrate the "Glorious Revolution" in 1688 which deposed that bone head King James II. There was a lot of background about the early British Empire. At that time the Brits didn't own Gibralter, and Tangier was one of the main Atlantic outposts of the Royal Navy. It was very interesting. I believe that some class or regiment of soldiers were called Tangerines (no joke.)

 

[Haversack]

dhermann wrote: " I believe that some class or regiment of soldiers were called Tangerines (no joke.)"

That would be The Queen's Royal Regiment, which is now The Queen's Royal Surrey Regiment. Tangiers came into English suzerenty through the marriage of King Charles II to the Portugese princess Catherine de Braganza. The cities of Tangiers and Bombay were part of Catherine's dowry.

Haversack.

 

[cookie]

Catherine of Braganza

Did Loungers know that apparently Catherine of Braganza was of African extraction? She is regarded by black folks as Britain's first black Queen.