Mohammedia: A Gentle Guide to Morocco's Flat Seaside Town

Most travelers see Mohammedia from a train window. The line between Casablanca and Rabat runs straight through it, and in the few minutes it takes to pass, you catch a glimpse of pine trees, low white buildings and a flash of grey-blue Atlantic. Then the city is gone, and everyone carries on to somewhere more famous.

We would like to suggest getting off instead. Mohammedia sits about 24 kilometres (roughly 15 miles) northeast of Casablanca, and it is the rare Moroccan destination that asks almost nothing of your knees. There is no hillside medina here, no staircase to a viewpoint, no steep lane where the taxi has to stop and let you walk the last part. The town is flat, the seafront is long and level, and the main activity is sitting down with a glass of mint tea while the ocean does the work.

This is a working port and a town of nearly 200,000 people, not a postcard. That is precisely its charm. Mohammedia is where Moroccan families come to spend a Sunday, and if you have ever wished for a few days in Morocco with no itinerary at all, this is a very good place to have them.

A little history

For most of its life this place was called Fedala, a name usually translated as "God's bounty" — a fair description of a coast this rich in fish. Records of a trading post here go back to the 14th century, when merchant ships from Genoa and Venice called in for grain and dried fruit, and the little harbour was used on and off for centuries afterwards as an export point for cereals.

The town you can still partly see today began in 1773, when Sultan Sidi Mohammed ben Abdallah ordered a kasbah built above the anchorage, with a mosque and warehouses inside its walls. Those low ramparts are the oldest thing in Mohammedia and the reason the fishing quarter sits where it does.

The 20th century changed everything. Under the French protectorate a modern port was built in the 1910s, and villas, a golf course and a casino followed as Casablanca's comfortable classes discovered the beaches. In June 1960 the town was renamed Mohammedia in honour of King Mohammed V, on the day the foundation stone was laid for what became Morocco's largest oil refinery. For fifty years the refinery defined the city; it closed in 2015, and Mohammedia has been quietly turning back towards its gardens, its sand and its fishing boats ever since.

Fishermen at Manesmane Beach in Mohammedia, photographed in autumn.

What to see

Nothing here is a "must". Treat the list below as a menu for three unhurried days.

The corniche and the seafront

Mohammedia's great pleasure is its seafront promenade. It runs flat beside the sand, lined with cafés, ice-cream counters and benches, and it fills in the late afternoon with families, pushchairs and old men walking in pairs. You can do as much or as little of it as you like, and there is always somewhere to sit within a hundred metres.

The kasbah and the old quarter

The 18th-century kasbah stands near the port, a modest walled enclosure of narrow lanes, small shops and simple eateries rather than a grand monument. It takes half an hour to wander and it is best combined with a look at the fishing boats below. The ground inside is uneven in places, so flat shoes with grip are worth having.

The beaches

The coast is a string of named beaches — Monica, Sablettes, Miramar, Manesmane, Mimosa — each with its own crowd. Sablettes is the one surfers favour, which tells you something about the swell; the Atlantic here has real current, and we would treat swimming as a decision to make only where there is lifeguard supervision, and only in calm water. For most of us the beaches are for looking at, especially in the last hour of light.

The parks

Mohammedia is unusually green for a Moroccan port. The town park and the Parc des Villes Jumelées (the Park of Twinned Cities) both give you shade, paths and seating a few minutes from the sea — exactly what you want at two in the afternoon.

The golf course

The Royal Golf Club de Mohammedia dates from the 1920s and is among the oldest courses in Morocco, laid out among pines near the shore. Even if you never touch a club, it explains the town's old holiday-resort atmosphere better than anything else.

Sunset over Sablettes Beach in Mohammedia.

A day trip nearby

Mohammedia's best feature may be what sits on either side of it. The station is on the main Casablanca–Rabat line, with frequent trains in both directions, and this makes the town a genuinely clever base.

Casablanca is roughly 25 to 35 minutes away by train. Go for the morning, see the Hassan II Mosque — the ablution hall and prayer hall are reached on guided visits, with some walking on marble and a few steps — and come back before the evening traffic.

Rabat is roughly 30 to 45 minutes in the other direction. The capital is calmer than Casablanca, and its tram system makes the distances manageable; the Kasbah of the Udayas does involve a slope and steps, so pace that one.

Closer to home, families with grandchildren in tow sometimes head for Dream Village, a large leisure park with a zoo set between Mohammedia and Casablanca near the Cascades woods. It is a short drive and a flat, easy outing, though a long one in full sun.

A train at Mohammedia station bound for Rabat.

Honest advice for comfortable travel

• The town is flat. This is the single best reason to come. Expect level pavements along the seafront and in the newer districts, with uneven surfaces mainly inside the kasbah and around the port.
• Stay near the corniche. If your hotel or guesthouse is within a few hundred metres of the promenade, you can reach the sea, cafés and restaurants without a taxi — the difference between a restful trip and a tiring one.
• Sand is harder work than it looks. Soft dry sand is unstable underfoot. Walk on the promenade and go down to the beach only where there are steps or a ramp with a handrail.
• Mind the ocean wind. Even in warm months, the Atlantic breeze picks up in late afternoon and the temperature drops quickly. Carry a light jacket or shawl every day.
• Avoid the middle of the day in July and August. Heat aside, the beaches are packed with Moroccan holidaymakers. Early morning and after five o'clock are the good hours.
• Taxis are easy and cheap. Small city taxis work within town; agree the fare or ask for the meter before setting off. For the train station, ask your hotel to call one.
• Trains are a comfortable option, but not step-free everywhere. Platforms may require stairs or a footbridge, and luggage is carried by hand. If stairs are difficult, a private car between Casablanca airport and Mohammedia is money well spent.
• Pharmacies and clinics are plentiful, as in any Moroccan city of this size, and most pharmacists speak French.
• Friday is couscous day. Many restaurants serve it only then, and the town slows down around midday prayers.

Mohammedia City Park, a shaded, level place to walk in the middle of town.

What to eat

Mohammedia eats fish, and it eats it simply. The restaurants clustered near the port are the reason people drive out from Casablanca: the menu depends on what came in that morning, and the standard treatment is grilled over wood or fried light, with bread, a tomato-and-pepper salad and a wedge of lemon. Sole, sea bream, red mullet, prawns and squid all turn up regularly.

Two things worth ordering if you see them. Grilled sardines, the great Moroccan Atlantic staple, cheap and excellent. And a tagine of fish with potatoes, carrots and preserved lemon, slow-cooked and gentle on the digestion — a good choice if fried food does not agree with you.

Away from the sea, the town has a strong French-influenced café and bakery habit left over from its resort years: croissants and msemen pancakes for breakfast, almond pastries in the afternoon. Harira soup appears in the evenings in the cooler months. Fresh orange juice is everywhere, and mint tea is the punctuation mark at the end of everything.

Alcohol is served in some hotels and restaurants but not in most ordinary places; ask rather than assume.

Getting there

Mohammedia railway station, on the Casablanca–Rabat line.

Our verdict

Mohammedia will not give you the drama of Chefchaouen or the theatre of Marrakech. What it gives instead is something travelers over 60 often want more and say less often: an easy place to be.

We would come here at the start of a Moroccan trip, to get over the flight on a flat promenade with a plate of grilled fish, or at the end of one, to recover from the medinas before flying home from Casablanca. Three nights by the corniche, two short train rides to the big cities, one long lunch near the port, and a sunset watched from a bench each evening — that is a complete holiday, and nothing in it will hurt tomorrow.

Go in late September or early October, when the sea is still warm, the crowds have gone back to work, and the light over the Atlantic turns the whole beach the colour of weak tea.

“Some towns ask you to climb; Mohammedia only asks you to sit down and face the sea.”

Photo credits

• Mohammedia Beach: Zemmama Chaimaa, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Fisherman at Manesmane Beach in Mohammedia, Morocco: Mounir Neddi, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Sunset on Sablettes Beach, Mohammedia, Morocco: Karima El Youbi, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Le train en gare de Mohammedia , destination vers la ville de Rabat: Farid mernissi, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• منتزه مدينة المحمدية . Mohammedia City Park: Mounir Neddi, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• La gare de Mohammedia ... région de Casablanca: Farid mernissi, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons