A Day in Tangier

After I spent a decent amount of exploring Rabat, I was ready to explore more of Morocco. The public transportation system in Morocco is super affordable and easy to use. (Unlike Michigan, where this is almost no public transportation). Weekend trips were super easy to do! I could take the tram to the train station, take a train to a new city, and taxi wherever I wanted to go.

My first weekend trip was to Tangier, a city north of Rabat. People often know about Tangier because it is on the Straights of Gibraltar. On a clear day, you can actually see Spain from Tangier. The train ride to Tangier was only 1.5 hours. There is a fast train between the two cities. The cities are so close, it makes a perfect day trip. 

Early Saturday morning, a friend and I hopped on a train. We got to Tangier mid-morning. At this point, classes had started and I had spent a lot of time studying. I was ready for a day away from homework. We had a loose plan for the day, but we were really just exploring the city leisurely. I prefer to travel this way. There was no pressure to do everything on our to-do list. Instead, we just explored the city and went wherever we felt like going. 

We stopped at a cafè to get breakfast. The cafè was right on the beach and looked out over the ocean. The beach was pristine white sand, so we wandered around on the beach for a while after we ate. I put my feet in the water and it was actually pretty warm by my standards! But a lot of Moroccans were still wearing their winter coats. 

We took a taxi to the medina of Tangier. The taxi driver never expected me to speak Arabic. But when they discovered I had some basic Arabic skills, the driver would start teaching me words. Every taxi ride was transportation and a mini Arabic lesson. 

The taxi dropped us off at the medina. While we wandered around the medina, we found a museum. Everything was in French and Arabic. Thankfully, my friend does speak French so she translated key information. It was nice to have a general idea of what was going on. While we wandered around the museum, we found a garden inside the museum! I was living my best life surrounded by all the green. 

We decided to eat an Italian restaurant to mix things up. By this time, I had eaten a lot of Moroccan food. Moroccan food is hands down the best food I've ever eaten, but it was nice to switch things up. 

We spent the rest of the day exploring the city. We explored a park, wandered around the medina, drank mint tea, and found a coffee shop. At the end of the day, we caught a taxi back to the train station to go home.

It was a short and sweet trip. I thought it was the ideal way to spend a day away from Rabat. I had the rest of the weekend to sleep, catch up on homework, and explore Rabat.