Casablanca's Old Medina — A Walking Guide to the City's Oldest Quarter

Casablanca confuses visitors because it has two 'medinas', and they are nothing alike. The Ancienne Medina, the subject of this guide, is the real old town: the walled settlement that existed before the French arrived in 1907, huddled between the port and today's downtown. The Habous quarter, by contrast, is a 'new medina' the French built in the 1920s and 1930s in a tidied, neo-traditional style, and it is a separate district a couple of kilometres inland.

The old medina is not Fes or Marrakech; it is small, worn and workaday, without grand monuments or a great souk. But it is the one place in this thoroughly modern city where you can walk lanes older than the twentieth century, and its Sqala bastion, clock tower and shrines give a short walk real texture. Set your expectations accordingly and it becomes an interesting hour rather than a disappointment, best paired with the Art Deco downtown right beside it.

The highlight of the old medina is the Sqala, an eighteenth-century fortified bastion built in the era when the town was a small Atlantic port, its ramparts still lined with old cannons pointing out toward the sea. It is the most atmospheric corner of the quarter, and the restored gun platform gives a sense of the fortified town Casablanca once was before it exploded into a metropolis. Entry to walk the area is generally free.

Within the bastion sits La Sqala, a well-known garden restaurant and cafe set among the ramparts and greenery, a calm, walled retreat that many visitors use as their reason to come and a pleasant place for a mid-morning coffee or lunch. Whether or not you eat, the Sqala is the natural anchor of an old-medina walk: start or finish here, and use its ramparts as your orientation point for the surrounding lanes.

On the downtown edge of the medina stands the clock tower, the Tour de l'Horloge, first built in 1908 in the early years of the French presence and later reconstructed; it marks the seam where the old walled town meets the planned Art Deco city and is the quarter's most recognisable landmark. From here the contrast that defines Casablanca is written on a single street corner: monumental boulevards on one side, tight medina lanes on the other.

Follow the old walls and gates around the quarter's edge to trace its footprint. The ramparts are patchy and much built-up, but sections survive, and the gates still funnel the flow of people between the medina and Place des Nations Unies, the huge downtown square. This edge is also the safest and easiest way to sample the medina if you would rather not plunge deep into its interior lanes.

Inside, the old medina is a dense, unpolished residential and commercial quarter rather than a tourist showpiece. Its lanes hold hardware and clothing stalls, food sellers, small mosques and the koubbas (domed shrines) of local saints, including the venerated shrine of Sidi Allal el Kairouani near the sea, a reminder of the town's older religious life. There is no single great souk; the pleasure is in the ordinary rhythm of a working neighbourhood.

Because it is a lived-in quarter and not set up for visitors, treat it with the awareness you would any busy old town: it is a place to observe and photograph discreetly rather than to shop seriously. For that, the Habous quarter or the downtown markets serve far better, and the city's best cheap eating is mapped in the Casablanca street food guide. A slow half-hour through the lanes, bookended by the Sqala and the clock tower, is about the right dose.

The old medina has a rougher reputation than the rest of central Casablanca, and while a daytime walk is fine for most visitors, it pays to be sensible. Pickpocketing and opportunistic bag-snatching are the realistic risks, not violence, so keep your phone and wallet secure and out of sight, carry a day bag on your front in the busier lanes, and do not flash expensive cameras or jewellery. Go in daylight and, if you prefer, stick to the Sqala-and-edge route rather than the deep interior.

You may be approached by unofficial 'guides' offering to show you around; a polite but firm 'no thank you' usually ends it, and there is no need to be drawn into a paid tour of a quarter you can easily walk yourself. Women travelling solo report the usual medina attention rather than anything worse, and behave as they would in any Moroccan old town. Walked with a little care, the old medina is an interesting, safe-enough hour.

It is worth being clear on the difference before you choose where to spend your time. The old medina is genuinely historic but rough and short on set-piece sights; the Habous quarter is a handsome, orderly 1920s creation with arcaded shopping streets, olive and book stalls, patisseries and the ornate Mahkama du Pacha, and it is the better bet for relaxed browsing and craft buying. Many visitors do both, since each takes only an hour or two, but they are very different experiences.

For the old medina itself, a compact route works best: start at the clock tower on the downtown edge, walk the wall to the Sqala bastion and its ramparts, dip into the interior lanes toward the sea and the Sidi Allal shrine, then loop back out to Place des Nations Unies and straight into the Art Deco downtown. The Habous alternative, with the Mahkama, is covered in the Habous shopping guide and the Mahkama du Pacha guide.

To settle which to prioritise, it helps to see the two side by side. If your time is short and you want atmosphere plus a bastion and sea view, the old medina delivers in an hour. If you want to shop, eat pastries, see fine neo-Moorish architecture and browse in comfort, Habous is the stronger choice. Neither takes long, so a half-day in Casablanca can comfortably include both, plus the Art Deco streets between them.

Whichever you choose, both pair naturally with the city's unmissable sight, the vast Hassan II Mosque on the seafront, a short taxi ride from the old medina and covered in the Hassan II Mosque guide. Together the old medina, Habous, the Art Deco quarter and the mosque make up the classic Casablanca sightseeing day set out in the one day in Casablanca itinerary.