Our ancestors had some funny ideas about space. Not outer space, although you could probably make an argument for that pre Galileo and Copernicus. No, I mean surface space. Back in the day, two thousand years ago, a thousand years ago even, land wasn’t taken up by mall car parks or cricket grounds or huge barn like taverns or useless (in some cases) national parks so you have to ask yourself, why was it necessary to build things on top of other things. Utilisation of existing foundations is the only reason I can think of, hence the mosque and necropolis of Sala in Rabat dating back to the 1300’s are built on top of the pre-existing Roman city ruins dating back to between 100 BC (not “BCE” in this blog) to about 200 AD.
And none of them recognised the future value of beach front property although to be fair, long term plans don’t normally go out 2000 years. However I do get the feeling the bloke who planned for all of the cemeteries in Rabat to cover hundreds of acres of the hills gently sloping down to the beach may have done so with a twinkle in his eye.
And whereas Casablanca is brash and in your face, Rabat is more sedate, more manicured and more monumented. It’s the capital and the king lives there so it stands to reason. Parts of it therefore resemble Canberra. No, that’s not fair. Sure there are wide, well planned, flower-fringed boulevards separating mansions built for ministers and ambassadors and captains of industry, with views to die for, but there’s still personality. It has an old bit (the walled medina) which most cities that have been around for a while have. And it has a surf beach which Canberra will never have unless the Greens decree climate catastrophe as of yesterday and Lake Burley Griffin turns into a wave pool. And the outer bits are like, well, Casablanca.
It also has a massive new theatre which, when it’s finished will look like a larger, ironed version of the Sydney Opera House.
Overall, a great blend of the old and new which, when you think about it, is a reasonable definition of everywhere we’ve been so far in Spain, Portugal and Morocco.