Agadir Morocco – At the Beach

Agadir was a lovely city, I just wish that I had more time to explore it.  I worked every day but one and had no car.  The good news is that the main reason tourists come to Agadir is to go to the beach and that was only a couple of blocks from the hotel where we were staying.  One note for those who visit, there are a lot of mis-conceptions about Arabic countries where most people think they are like Saudi Arabia.  Morocco, like most of the North African countries is very liberal.  While the majority of women cover their heads, it is usually with a fashionable French scarf.  You will hardly see a full abaya.  Men are almost always in western dress with only a couple of percent in traditional Arabic outfits.  A bikini on the beach or wearing shorts around town is no big deal.

As with most beach towns, there is a main drag that parallels the beach.  Agadir’s is full of good hotels, restaurants, and nightclubs.  It is very clean and safe everywhere that I went.  There are paths to the beach every couple of blocks so you shouldn’t have a problem getting to the boardwalk.

The boardwalk is wide and beautiful.  The beach was clean and most of the hotels had umbrellas, lounges, and other activities as long as you were willing to pay.  Did I mention that everything in Agadir is pretty cheap.  The exchange rate is an easy-to-calculate $1=10 Dirhams.  For $20 you can have a nice dinner for two.

There are the usual hawkers along the boardwalk, but I find them very entertaining and actually bought a geode and a stone carving from them.  This guy allowed me to take his picture.

They have many hotels right on the beach (unfortunately no chain hotels to use your points on) and a Club Med here if you are into that program.

Continuing down the boardwalk, you can see a hill off  in the distance.  On this sits the Casbah (fort) which collapsed in a massive earthquake in 1961.  At the end of my trip, we went to have dinner at our Moroccan officer’s house.  His father told us of his house collapsing around him and him having to claw his way out of the rubble.  Pretty unusual to run into someone with that type of experience.

Anyway, back to the beach.  There are nice places to eat as you would expect and the unanimous vote for best restaurant was this Indian place.

I spent the day walking around the town.  Morocco was a great place to pick up saffron for my wife at a fairly good price.  I also got her some olive oil, which you would think would be great coming from a place where they grow them.  Haven’t tested that theory yet.  I could not find any central mall, but a few blocks off the beach there are many traditional markets where you can poke around and shop for local trinkets.  You can also visit the GFC if you want some fried chicken.

 

I enjoyed this Cuban restaurant at the end of the boardwalk with their 50s sedan out front.

I stayed until the evening (and got a little too much sun) and I will leave you with these beautiful shots.  I particularly enjoyed the young Moroccan couple sitting on the wall and watching the sun set on a great day.