| Duration: | 1 Day(s) - 0 Night(s) |
| Tour Category: | Full Day Tours |
Rabat, modern capital and historical city: a shared heritage
Located on the Atlantic seaboard, in the north-west of Morocco, Rabat is the result of a fruitful dialogue between the Arab-Muslim past and Western modernism. The site includes the "new town", designed and built under the French Protectorate from 1912 to the 1930s, including the royal residence, colonial administrations, residential and commercial complexes, the Garden of Essais - botany and amenity. There are also ancient parts of the city which sometimes date back to the 12th century. The "new city" represents one of the largest and most ambitious urban projects of the twentieth century in Africa, probably the most complete. The old part houses the Hassan mosque (beginning of construction in 1184) as well as the Almohad ramparts and gates, the only surviving remains of a major project of the capital city of the Almohad caliphate. There are also vestiges of the Moorish or Andalusian principality of the seventeenth century.
