Rabat: A Gentle Guide to Morocco's Calmest Capital

Most visitors treat Rabat as a comma in the sentence — a stop between Casablanca and Fes, an hour on the train, a photograph of a tower. We think that is the wrong way round. Rabat is the place where Morocco lowers its voice.

This is a capital of civil servants and students, of leafy boulevards and swept pavements, of a medina where nobody chases you down the lane. The Atlantic keeps the air moving even in August. The tram glides past the old city walls. And at the mouth of the Bou Regreg river, a white-and-blue fortress town sits on its hill as if it had nothing at all to prove.

Our angle is simple: Rabat is the easiest big city in Morocco for travellers over 60, and the one where you can do less and feel more. Come for four nights, walk slowly, and let the river do the rest.

A little history

Rabat is old in layers, and you can see each one without leaving the city.

At the southern edge, beside a ravine, the Romans built the port town of Sala. Its stones are still lying in the grass at Chellah. In the 12th century the Almohad caliphs chose the river mouth for a fortified camp — a ribat, which is where the name comes from — and dreamed of a capital to match. They raised huge red ramparts, the great gateway of Bab Oudaia, and began a mosque so ambitious that its minaret, the Hassan Tower, was abandoned half-built when the caliph died. It still stands at around 44 metres, roughly half the intended height.

Then the city shrank for centuries, until the 1600s brought Muslim refugees expelled from Spain. They rebuilt the kasbah in an Andalusian spirit, and Rabat and neighbouring Salé became famous — or notorious — for their corsairs. In 1912, under the French Protectorate, Rabat was made the administrative capital and given a whole new town of boulevards, ministries and gardens. Independence in 1956 confirmed it as the capital of the kingdom, and in 2012 UNESCO inscribed the whole ensemble — ancient and modern together — on the World Heritage list.

That double inscription is really the character of the place: a Roman ruin, an Almohad wall and a 1920s post office within a short tram ride of each other.

The ramparts of the Kasbah of the Udayas in Rabat.

What to see

Rabat's sights are few, generous and close together — an unusually kind combination.

The Kasbah of the Udayas

The walled quarter above the river is the loveliest half-hour in the city: lanes washed white below and blue above, doorways with brass hands, cats asleep on steps, and almost no traffic. It is entered from the medina side, uphill, through the monumental Almohad gate. Inside, the main lane leads to a viewing terrace over the river mouth and the old artillery platform known as the Sqala. Do go in, but read our advice section first: this is the one part of Rabat with real steps and uneven paving.

The Andalusian Garden and the Café Maure

Tucked inside the kasbah walls, this walled garden of orange trees and clipped hedges was laid out in the early 20th century and is deeply restful. Below it, a terrace café looks across the water to Salé. A glass of mint tea here, with the gulls and the small boats, is the memory most of our readers bring home.

The Hassan Tower and the Mausoleum of Mohammed V

A vast, flat, paved esplanade holds the unfinished minaret and the forest of broken columns from the mosque that never was. Facing it stands the mausoleum of Mohammed V, built in the 1960s, where royal guards stand at the doors and visitors look down onto the tombs from a gallery above. The esplanade itself is level and easy, which makes this the most comfortable major sight in the city. Dress modestly at the mausoleum.

Chellah

Outside the city walls, Chellah is a walled enclosure where Roman ruins and a 14th-century Marinid royal necropolis lie together under fig trees, with storks nesting noisily on the minaret in spring. It is romantic and unusually quiet. The paths inside are uneven and slope downhill, so take a stick and your time.

The medina and Rue des Consuls

Rabat's old town is small, largely flat and laid out on surprisingly straight lines. Rue des Consuls, the old carpet and slipper street, is covered in places and pleasantly unhurried by Moroccan standards. Prices are asked rather than demanded.

The new town

Do not skip it. Avenue Mohammed V, with its arcades, ministries and cafés, is a fine example of early 20th-century colonial town planning, and the Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, opened in 2014, is spacious, air-conditioned and has lifts — an excellent choice for a hot afternoon.

A blue-painted lane in the Kasbah of the Udayas, Rabat.

A day trip nearby

Salé, directly across the Bou Regreg, is the easiest and best excursion, and it needs only half a day.

The old town there is more workaday than Rabat's and receives few visitors, which is exactly its charm. The great sight is the Madrasa of Abu al-Hasan, a small Marinid college from around 1341 whose courtyard of carved plaster and cedar is a jewel box. The rooftop view over Salé is lovely but is reached by narrow, steep stairs, so judge that one honestly.

Getting across is part of the pleasure. Tram line 2 crosses the Hassan II bridge and takes roughly 10 to 20 minutes from central Rabat, with level boarding and a seat if you avoid rush hour. Boatmen also still row passengers across the river below the kasbah for a few dirhams — charming, but it means stepping down into a small open boat from a sandy bank, which is not for unsteady legs.

If you would rather stay on the Rabat side, the coastal road south towards Temara has broad ocean views and a string of café terraces — an easy hour by taxi with a stop for tea.

The Sqala, a seaside artillery platform of the Kasbah of the Udayas, above the mouth of the Bou Regreg river.

Honest advice for comfortable travel

• Rabat is flat where it matters. The new town, the esplanade at the Hassan Tower and most of the medina are level, with proper pavements and kerbs — rare in Morocco. Only the kasbah is genuinely hilly.
• The kasbah involves steps. The entrance gate is reached by a flight of stairs from the medina side, and the lanes inside have steps, slopes and uneven paving. A taxi can drop you on the road near the upper entrance, which saves the worst of the climb; ask for the kasbah, not the medina.
• Use the tram. Two lines, level platform boarding, cheap and predictable. It serves the medina, the Hassan Tower area, the main stations and Salé. It is far less tiring than walking between districts.
• Petit taxis are plentiful and inexpensive. Agree the fare or ask for the meter before you set off, and keep small notes and coins.
• Plan around the heat differently here. Rabat rarely becomes punishing — highs in July and August usually sit in the mid to high 20s °C — but the sun is strong and shade is patchy at Chellah and the Hassan Tower. Sights in the morning, museum or café in the afternoon.
• Winter is mild but wet. From November to February expect comfortable daytime temperatures and genuine rain, which makes worn paving stones slippery.
• Two sights a day is plenty. Distances are short, but Moroccan days are long. Build in a proper sit-down.
• Mosques are not open to non-Muslim visitors, but the mausoleum, Chellah, the kasbah and the gardens all are.
• Pharmacies, ATMs and good private clinics are easy to find in the new town. This is a capital city, and it feels like one.

Pedestrians walking beside the Kasbah walls in Rabat.

What to eat

Rabat eats with the Atlantic at its door. Fish is the thing: sardines rubbed with chermoula — garlic, coriander, cumin, paprika, lemon — and grilled over charcoal; sole, sea bream and prawns, plainly done and very fresh. Even simple places will fry you a plate of fish with bread and a wedge of lemon.

Beyond the sea, you get the great Moroccan standards done reliably well: chicken tagine with preserved lemon and olives, lamb with prunes, harira soup, and couscous, which is traditionally the Friday meal. For breakfast, look for msemen (flaky griddle bread) and beghrir (semolina pancakes) with butter and honey, and fresh orange juice, which is excellent and everywhere.

For sweets, the cake shops of the new town sell almond pastries, honeyed chebakia and gazelle horns by the piece — easy to carry back to your hotel for later. And mint tea is less a drink than a rhythm: it marks the pause between two sights, and in Rabat you will take a great many pauses.

Two gentle practicalities. Alcohol is served in some hotels and restaurants but not in the medina, so do not expect wine with your tagine in the old town. And portions are large; sharing a starter is entirely normal.

Where to stay to keep the walking short

This decision matters more than any other in Rabat.

The new town, around Avenue Mohammed V and the Rabat Ville station, is our first recommendation for most readers over 60. Flat pavements, taxis at the door, lifts in the hotels, restaurants within a few minutes' walk, and the tram close by. Everything else in the city is a short ride away.

The medina, near Bab el Had or Rue des Consuls, offers restored riads with tiled courtyards and roof terraces — beautiful, atmospheric, and almost always reached on foot down a lane, with steep stairs inside and no lift. Vehicles stop at the gates. Wonderful if your knees are willing; ask the riad in advance how far the walk is and whether they will meet you with a luggage cart.

Agdal, the modern district around the Rabat Agdal station, suits travellers arriving or leaving on the high-speed train and those who like broad, quiet streets and newer hotels.

Wherever you land, ask for a room away from the street: Rabat is calm, but capital cities have traffic.

The walls of the Kasbah of the Udayas with the new Mohammed VI Tower behind, photographed in 2024.

Getting there

Our verdict

Rabat will not overwhelm you, and that is precisely why we send readers here. It has one truly great monument, one perfect small fortress town, a Roman ruin full of storks, a river with boats on it, and an unhurried capital-city ease that makes the rest of Morocco easier to take on afterwards.

If your legs are strong, you can see almost everything on foot in three days. If they are not, the tram and the taxis will take you to every door but one, and even the kasbah can be entered from its gentler upper side.

We would come at the end of a Moroccan trip rather than the beginning — the way you might end a long dinner with something cool and simple. Four nights, a terrace over the Bou Regreg, and nothing at all in the diary for the afternoons.

“In Rabat the ocean arrives with the afternoon, and nobody sees any reason to hurry it along.”

Photo credits

• Panoramic view of Rabat from Kasbah of the Udayas: Mounir Neddi, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Rabat Kasbah Oudayas 1: Remi Jouan, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Ruelle bleue, Kasbah des Oudayas Rabat, Maroc 15561666480: Carlos ZGZ from Paris, France, CC0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Sqala of the Kasbah of the Udayas: Robert Prazeres, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Pedestrians and Kasbah Walls - Rabat - Morocco: Adam Jones, Ph.D., CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Walls of Kasbah of Udayas and new Mohammed VI Tower 2024: Petar Milošević, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons