Tangier

Tangier has a long sandy city beach curving around its bay below the modern town, backed by a promenade, but most visitors find the water there less inviting than the view. The better swimming is west of the city, where the Atlantic beaches around Achakar and Cap Spartel are wide and less built up, with surf and cooler water. The sea reaches about 20-21°C in late summer.

Beach life is mainly a local summer affair, busy with Moroccan families in July and August. Dress on the beach is more modest than on European coasts. For a day by the sea, the beaches near Asilah, under an hour south, are a good choice, but a visitor comes to Tangier for the city, not to lie by the water.

Eating in Tangier means Moroccan home cooking with a strong seafood accent from two seas: grilled sardines and fish chosen at the port, tagines, couscous on Fridays, bissara soup at breakfast and bowls of harira. The medina and the streets around the Grand Socco have small grill counters, bakeries and stalls selling msemen and snail broth. The fish and produce markets near the Grand Socco show what the city cooks.

The café is the heart of it. Men linger for hours over mint tea on terraces facing the Strait, and Café Hafa, open since 1921, serves tea on clifftop terraces above the water. The range is narrow, there is little fine dining, and wine and beer are found in a limited set of restaurants and hotels.

Tangier's appeal is its atmosphere and its history as a city where Europe and Africa meet. The kasbah at the top of the medina holds the old sultan's palace, now a museum of Moroccan art and antiquities, and its walls look across the Strait to Spain. Below, the whitewashed medina climbs from the port, with the Petit Socco at its centre and the Grand Socco at its gate.

The Tangier American Legation, the first American diplomatic property abroad, is a fine Moorish-style house with a museum about the city's international era. The Anglican church of St Andrew, the Mendoubia gardens and the Art Deco and Spanish colonial buildings of the Ville Nouvelle add to it, as do the city's links with Paul Bowles and the Beat writers. Two or three days covers it comfortably.

Evenings in Tangier are mostly spent on café terraces and walking the seafront, which fills with families on summer nights. Drinking happens in a small, discreet circle: a few long-standing bars from the international era, hotel bars and lounges in the Ville Nouvelle, and beach clubs along the bay that come alive in summer. There is no real street drinking or club district, and the medina is quiet after dark. Visitors who want a big night out will find little here.

The best of Tangier's outdoors is the headland west of the city. Cap Spartel, where the Atlantic meets the Mediterranean, has a lighthouse, cliffs and paths through pine and eucalyptus, and the Perdicaris park on the hills above the city is a large wooded park for walks with views across the Strait. The Caves of Hercules sit in the cliffs nearby.

The Strait is a major bird migration route, and storks and raptors cross here in spring and autumn, while boats from the region go out to watch dolphins. For mountain hiking, the Rif and the Talassemtane national park are two hours or more inland, so a visitor needs to stay overnight to do them justice.

Tangier is a good base for northern Morocco. Asilah, a whitewashed seaside town with ramparts and murals, is under an hour south, and Tetouan, with its Andalusian-influenced medina on the UNESCO list, is about an hour east. The blue-washed mountain town of Chefchaouen is a long day, a little over two hours by road.

The high-speed train reaches Rabat, with its kasbah, royal mausoleum and UNESCO-listed old city, in well under two hours. Larache and the Roman ruins of Lixus lie along the Atlantic coast, and ferries cross the Strait to Tarifa in Spain in about an hour, with Ceuta also close. Few cities give such a mix of medinas, coast and a second continent within easy reach.

Moroccan culture is warm towards children, and Tangier is cooler and calmer in summer than the inland cities. The seafront promenade, the city beach, the Perdicaris park and the Caves of Hercules make easy outings, and families can enjoy the ferry over to Spain for a day.

There is little made for children, though: no zoo or aquarium of note and no theme park. The medina is steep, with stairs and narrow lanes that are hard with a pushchair, and touts can be wearing. Families tend to do best in a hotel with a pool and short outings.

The core of Tangier, the medina, the kasbah and the Ville Nouvelle around the Boulevard Pasteur, can be covered on foot, though the medina is steep, with stairways and lanes that confuse at first. Beyond that, visitors rely on the small blue petit taxis, which are cheap and everywhere, and on shared grand taxis for longer runs.

There is no metro or tram, and the city buses are of little use to a visitor. Cap Spartel, the caves and the Atlantic beaches need a taxi or a hired driver. The main train station links well with Rabat and Casablanca, and the ferry port in the city centre makes crossing to Spain simple.

Shopping in Tangier is mainly in the medina, where the lanes around the Petit Socco and up towards the kasbah sell leather slippers, rugs, lanterns, ceramics and the striped red-and-white cloth worn by Rif women. Bargaining is expected and the hard sell can be persistent. Saturday markets around the Grand Socco bring in farm women from the hills with produce and woven hats.

The Ville Nouvelle has ordinary chain shops and a few antique and design shops from the city's expatriate past, and there are large modern malls on the bay. The craft offer is decent but smaller and less refined than in the country's great souk cities.

Tangier is an inexpensive city to visit. Grilled fish, tagines and street snacks cost little, mint tea on a café terrace is a small change affair, and petit taxis and the city's few museums are cheap. Guesthouses and riads in the medina offer good value, especially outside the summer peak.

Costs rise with the comforts that bring the city closer to Europe: well-known hotels with sea views, restaurants serving alcohol and seafront places popular with summer visitors. Alcohol is the one thing that is not cheap.

Tangier has a musical past larger than its present stage. The city's international era drew writers and musicians, and the Jajouka musicians of the nearby Rif hills became famous abroad. Today a visitor may hear Andalusian classical music, Jilala and gnawa at festivals and occasional concerts, and the city holds a long-running jazz festival each year.

There is no regular programme of theatre, opera or classical concerts, and live music on an ordinary night is mostly what hotels and restaurants stage. The historic art-house cinema on the Grand Socco is the city's best-known cultural venue.

The public hammam is part of everyday life in Tangier, and neighbourhood bathhouses in the medina and older quarters offer the full ritual of steam, black soap and scrubbing with a kessa glove. They are local places, simple and not geared to visitors, with separate hours or rooms for men and women. Several riads and larger hotels run more comfortable hammam and massage spas.

The pace is the other part of it. Long hours on a terrace over the Strait with mint tea, and quiet riad rooftops above the medina, make the city easy to slow down in, even if the port and traffic below are anything but calm.