Three days in Tangier: the city nobody governed for thirty years

Two nights above the Strait of Gibraltar, one day in the old town, and a morning out at the corner where the Atlantic starts.

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Length
3 days, 2 nights
Where you stay
Tangier
Places
6 across 3 days
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Tangier sits on the Strait of Gibraltar with Spain in plain sight across the water, and has spent most of its history being fought over because of it. For thirty years in the middle of the twentieth century it was not really governed by anyone: an international zone run by a committee of foreign powers, with its own banks, no income tax and a reputation for smuggling, spying and writers behaving badly. That period ended in 1956 and the city has been quietly reinventing itself ever since, with a high-speed railway, a rebuilt seafront and a great deal of new money.

What survives is a small, steep, walkable old town on a hill above the port, a European quarter of shuttered art deco buildings and Spanish churches, and a light that made half the painters of the twentieth century move here. It is the easiest city in Morocco to arrive in and, for a lot of people, the one that takes longest to make sense of.

Three days is right: an afternoon to walk in from the Grand Socco, a full day for the kasbah and the medina museums, and a last morning on the headland west of the city before the train south.

Highlights

  • The Kasbah Museum in the old sultan's palace, with a garden and a view over the Strait
  • Mint tea at Cafe Hafa, on terraces cut into the cliff since 1921
  • The American Legation, the only United States national landmark on foreign soil
  • The Caves of Hercules, whose mouth opens onto the Atlantic in the shape of Africa

Where to stay

Tangier, two nights

Founded around the fifth century BCE and traded between Phoenicians, Romans, Portuguese, English and Spanish since, Tangier has always belonged to the Strait rather than to the country behind it. At the start of the twentieth century about a quarter of its population was European and another quarter Jewish, and the mix is still visible in the buildings: an Anglican church with a minaret for a bell tower, a Spanish theatre standing empty, a synagogue turned into an archive.

The layout is simple. The medina occupies the hill above the port, with the kasbah and the old palace crowning it. The Grand Socco, properly Place du 9 Avril 1947, is the hinge between the old town and the ville nouvelle the Europeans built. West of both, the Marshan district runs out along the cliff towards the sea.

Two nights is enough to walk all of that and still have a morning for the coast. Anyone continuing to Chefchaouen or Fez leaves from here anyway, so it makes a good first stop rather than a last one.

Day by day

Day 1 in Tangier

The Grand Socco, the Petit Socco and tea on the cliff

Come in through the Grand Socco, the square that has been the market and the meeting point for centuries and is now a wide open circle of palms and traffic. Its formal name commemorates the day in April 1947 when Sultan Mohammed V stood here and asked publicly for independence, which was not a small thing to do in an internationally administered city.

From there walk into the medina and downhill to the Petit Socco, a small square of cafes that was the centre of the international city's disreputable half: bank offices, hotels of no fixed reputation, and every foreign writer who passed through in the 1950s. It is much quieter now, and sitting there with a coffee for half an hour is the best introduction the city offers.

In the late afternoon, walk west out of the medina to Cafe Hafa in Marshan. It has been open since 1921 and it is simply a set of whitewashed terraces stepped down the cliff face with plastic chairs and small tables, facing Spain. Mint tea, a view of the freighters queueing for the Strait, and the sun going down behind Cape Spartel.

  1. 15:30

    Place du 9 Avril 1947

    Architecture

    The old market square between the medina and the new town. Thursday and Sunday mornings bring Rif women down in striped skirts and straw hats to sell produce.

  2. 16:45

    Petit souq

    Architecture

    The little square at the heart of the old town, ringed by cafes. Sit at one, order a nous nous, and watch the medina go past.

  3. 18:30

    Cafe El-Hafa

    Eat

    Terraces on the cliff, open since 1921, with the Strait of Gibraltar in front of you. Come an hour before sunset to get a table on the lower level.

  4. 20:30

    Dinner in the medina

    Eat

    Fish is the thing here rather than tagine: the boats land at the port below you. Small places near the Petit Socco do a whole grilled catch for very little.

With more time: The Mendoubia Gardens open off the west side of the Grand Socco: a walled park with an enormous marble fountain, old fig trees and benches, and almost nobody in it.

Day 2 in Tangier

The kasbah, the Legation and the churches of the international city

Climb to the top of the medina first. The kasbah is the walled citadel crowning the medina, and inside it the Dar el-Makhzen, the sultan's palace, holds the city museum: mosaics from Roman Volubilis, Phoenician and Islamic collections, painted ceilings, and a courtyard garden that is worth the ticket on its own. Behind it a terrace looks straight across the water to the Spanish coast, which on a clear morning is close enough to make out buildings.

Walk back down through the lanes to the American Legation. The building was a gift from the Sultan to the United States in 1821 and stayed in American hands for a century and a half, which makes it the only place outside the country that carries United States national landmark status. It is now a museum of the city's international years, with a good collection of paintings and a room devoted to Paul Bowles, and it is one of the most likeable small museums anywhere.

Finish in the afternoon just outside the medina at St Andrew's, the Anglican church built for the British community in a Moorish style, with a bell tower shaped like a minaret and the Lord's Prayer carved in Arabic behind the altar. The graveyard around it reads like a directory of everyone who washed up in Tangier and never left.

  1. 09:30

    Kasbah

    Visit

    The former sultan's palace inside the kasbah walls, with collections running from Phoenician to modern and a garden most people miss. Allow an hour and a half.

  2. 11:30

    The American Legation Museum (TALM)

    Architecture

    Given to the United States by the Sultan in 1821, and the American mission here until 1956. The Paul Bowles wing and the top-floor gallery are the reasons to go.

  3. 13:15

    Lunch off the Petit Socco

    Eat

    Sardines, kefta and bread from a hole in the wall, or a proper sit-down plate on a terrace. Neither costs much.

  4. 15:00

    Church of Saint Andrew

    Religious

    Ask the caretaker to show you round; there is usually someone in the graveyard who will. Ten minutes from the Grand Socco, behind the tiled mosque.

With more time: Two more of the international city's leftovers are within a few streets: the Gran Teatro Cervantes, a Spanish theatre from the 1910s standing derelict behind a locked gate, and the Fondation Lorin, an archive of old photographs and posters in a former synagogue.

Day 3 in Tangier

Cape Spartel and the Caves of Hercules

Take a taxi west along the coast road on the last morning. It runs above the beaches and through the pine woods of the Diplomatic Forest to Cape Spartel, the headland where the Atlantic and the Mediterranean are said to meet, with a nineteenth century lighthouse on the point and a great deal of wind.

A few kilometres south of the point are the Caves of Hercules. Half of the complex is natural sea cave and half was quarried by Berber millstone cutters over centuries, and the reason everybody photographs it is the opening to the sea, which has been worn into a shape strikingly like a map of Africa. Legend puts Hercules here, resting between labours. Go at low tide if you can, when the sea is not coming into the mouth of the cave.

That is a comfortable half day, back in town by one. If your train or flight leaves in the morning instead, do the caves on the second afternoon and the kasbah on the third: the museums shut earlier than the coast does.

  1. 09:00

    Taxi to Cape Spartel

    Travel

    Twenty minutes west on the coast road. Agree a price that includes the wait and the return, and stop at the lighthouse on the way.

  2. 10:00

    Hercules Caves

    Nature

    Part sea cave, part ancient quarry, with the Africa-shaped opening at the far end. A ticket booth, a short stairway, and about an hour of it.

  3. 13:00

    Back to Tanger-Ville

    Travel

    Half an hour from the cape to the station. Al Boraq to Rabat and Casablanca, or the airport shuttle from the same forecourt.

With more time: With more time on the way back, the beaches west of the city are long, Atlantic and mostly empty outside July and August, and there are cafes along the road above them that grill whatever came in that morning.

Before you go

Getting in and out

Tangier is the best-connected city in Morocco. Ibn Battouta airport takes budget flights from across western Europe; the airport shuttle bus runs to Tanger-Ville station for forty dirhams, and grand taxis wait outside arrivals at fixed prices posted on a board.

Al Boraq, the high-speed line and the first in Africa, leaves Tanger-Ville for Rabat and Casablanca several times a day and takes a little over two hours to Casablanca. Fez is a longer ride east, and Chefchaouen is a three hour bus.

Ferries from Spain land in two different places, which catches people out. The fast boats from Tarifa take about an hour and dock at the city port, ten minutes on foot from the medina. Everything from Algeciras goes to Tanger Med, a container port forty kilometres east, from where you need a shuttle bus or a taxi.

Where to stay

The medina and the kasbah have the character: small guesthouses in old houses, sea views from the roof, and lanes too narrow for a car, so expect to walk the last stretch with your bag. It is a short and steep walk down to the port and the station taxis.

The ville nouvelle around Boulevard Mohammed V has the grand old hotels and the ordinary modern ones, and the beachfront on Boulevard Mohammed VI has the big resorts. Both are perfectly comfortable and neither has much atmosphere after dark.

Wherever you stay, being able to walk to the Grand Socco in ten minutes is what makes these three days work.

Getting around

Walk. The old town, the kasbah and the European quarter are all within about a kilometre of the Grand Socco, and the medina is closed to cars anyway. The one thing worth a taxi is Cape Spartel and the caves, which are twelve kilometres west along the coast.

Petit taxis are cheap and metered, and drivers here are more likely to use the meter than in Marrakech. Agree the price for the run out to the caves, including waiting time, before you leave.

Spanish is the second language of the street here, ahead of French. A few words of it go further in Tangier than anywhere else in Morocco.

What to expect

Central Tangier is safe and busy, with a police presence and a lot of people out at night. The nuisance is touts in the medina, who work day-trippers off the Spanish ferries hardest. Not answering is more effective than arguing.

The city is at its best from April to June and in September and October. Summer is hot and Spanish holidaymakers fill it; winter is mild but the Atlantic wind on the headland is serious.

Alcohol is easier to find here than in most Moroccan cities, a leftover of the international years, and the old hotel bars are worth a drink for the rooms alone.

Tangier does not perform for visitors the way Marrakech does, and that is most of its appeal. The pleasures are ordinary ones: a coffee on the Petit Socco, the wind on the cliff at Marshan, a Spanish shopfront on a Moroccan street, the ferries crossing to a country you can see from the terrace.

It also makes the best door into the country. Arrive here from Spain, spend three days getting used to Morocco at the gentlest possible pace, and then take the train south.

Or make it a longer trip

These trips pass through here on the way somewhere else.

Make it your trip

Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.

Copy to my trips

Common questions

Is Tangier worth three days?
Yes, if you want the city rather than a stopover. One day covers the medina and the kasbah, a second covers the museums and the European quarter, and a half day gets you out to the coast. Anything less and it stays a port you passed through.
Can I visit Tangier as a day trip from Spain?
You can, and it is the worst way to see it. The Tarifa ferry takes about an hour, but day tour groups spend their time being walked between shops by touts. If you can spare a night, cross in the afternoon and stay.
Which port do the ferries use?
Two. Fast boats from Tarifa dock at the city port, a ten minute walk from the medina. Boats from Algeciras go to Tanger Med, forty kilometres east, which needs a bus or taxi transfer. Check which one your ticket means before you book a hotel.
Is Tangier safe?
Central Tangier is safe, well policed and comfortable for solo travellers. The persistent medina touts are an annoyance rather than a danger, and a flat refusal without conversation deals with most of them.
How does this connect to the rest of Morocco?
Copy the plan and add to it: Al Boraq runs south to Rabat and Casablanca in a couple of hours, buses reach Chefchaouen in about three, and Fez is a comfortable day's train ride to the southeast.