The African Bulletin
Morocco’s elegant capital city of Rabat was designated a new UNESCO World Heritage Site this past July.
This means word is just starting to get out about what the UNESCO folks call Rabat’s “fertile exchange between the Arabo-Muslim past and Western modernism.”
Exhibit A: the historic old town featuring the magnificent twelfth-century Hassan Mosque and a picturesque medina overlooking the Atlantic with largely hassle-free shopping.
Exhibit B: Rabat’s charming French-built new town with wide boulevards and lovely cafes.
A shiny new tramway links the capital to its sister city Salé, while a new airport terminal means the city has become much more accessible. Rabat (area population 1.7 million) is hitting the proverbial travel radar, but it’s far from overrun — that makes 2013 the year to be there now.
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