---
type: Place
title: Casablanca
description: A one-day layover spent losing two negotiations in the old medina, meeting a parrot with 18,000 Instagram followers, failing to get into Rick's Café, and having the best hammam of Harry's life.
tags: [casablanca, morocco, medina, markets, haggling, hammam, football, food]
coordinates: {lat: 33.5945, lng: -7.6200}
timestamp: 2026-08-05T12:00:00Z
---

# Casablanca

The largest city in [Morocco](/countries/morocco.md), and Harry is here for
**one day**, on a layover, with a shopping list: a warm jacket, a ski mask, a
headscarf, a sleeping bag and ski goggles, for a cold-weather trip he won't name.

His impression of the city is better than he expected. Very walkable, palm trees
in winter, French colonial buildings with mosaics next to the old medina, and —
his own phrase — a city with character, which he says is the kind he likes.

*Obs: this source has auto-generated subtitles. Prices below are spoken without a
stated currency and carry the unverified marker.*

## The medina, and two lost negotiations

He walks in admitting he hasn't done a market run in a while and needs to get his
negotiating hat back on. He then loses twice, cheerfully.

**The jacket**, sold to him as a genuine Moncler, which he does not believe for a
second and says so:

- Opens at **800 (from video – unverified)**.
- Drops to 450, then 400, then 350, then 300, each described as a special price.
- **Harry's problem, stated on camera: it is his first day and he doesn't know
  the conversion rate.** He guesses "maximum 100", offers 200, and takes it.
- It is bright orange, and he notes afterwards that if he stood out before, he
  certainly does now.

**The football shirt:**

- Asked **200**, he offers 100.
- Settles at **190** — a ten-unit discount, which he calls out as pathetic.
- He puts the value at about **$15** and says that's expensive.
- **The walk-away works**, he confirms, and still barely moves the price.

His verdict on himself: he has been out of the game too long, got roped into two
purchases, and everybody is happy anyway. His verdict on them: Moroccans are very
good at this.

## The traditional shop, and Pikachu

A shop selling Moroccan bags, carpets and goatskin, run by a designer who then
spends the rest of Harry's medina visit telling him where to go — which Harry
says is the reason his day worked at all, having been walking around like a
headless chicken.

The shop also contains **a parrot called Pikachu, with 18,000 Instagram
followers.** Born there, doesn't fly off, tweets when someone comes in because she
wants attention, and has a haircut Harry admires. Her owner's description of her,
which Harry enjoys: she's an Instagram girl.

## The city

- **Old doors and old buildings** that make him feel transported back in time.
  Every street, he says, has its own story.
- **Table football on the side of the road**, and boys playing football on every
  open surface. He declines to join on the grounds that he'd be shown up.
- **Raja Casablanca** is the team, and it comes up constantly.
- **The Hassan II Mosque**, on the Atlantic. He is told it is the third largest
  in the world, immediately says he thinks that's wrong and not to quote him, and
  settles on it definitely being the biggest in Africa. He compares its size to
  the mosque he saw in Istanbul. **It was closed when he arrived and opens at
  7pm.**

## Rick's Café

The restaurant built around the film *Casablanca*, and the one thing he wanted
that he doesn't get.

- **You need a reservation**, which the group ahead of him had and he didn't.
- **No cameras**, which settles it.

He tries anyway, is turned away, and goes elsewhere.

## The shoe clean

His shoes are the dirtiest they have ever been — bought a month earlier for over
$100 and, in his words, ruined.

- **Quoted 50 (from video – unverified)**, which he works out as about £4 and
  calls expensive — then says he doesn't mind paying more given the state of
  them.
- The cleaner fetches extra equipment for the job, and Harry rates the effort
  above the result: not perfect, but the shoes were beyond saving.
- **He pays about $10 or more.**

The useful part happens beside it: a man approaches Harry, and the shoe cleaner
gives him a look. Harry reads it as a warning about the man and takes it as one.

## The haircut

Walked into a barbershop with no appointment and was waved to the front — the
men waiting stopped and let him go first. He asks for a skin fade with very
little off the top, and notes that he hadn't been asked for any instructions
before the barber started.

The whole exchange happens with no shared language and works out fine.

## Dinner

A famous restaurant with cannons outside and a grand traditional entrance. He
gets in without a reservation by arriving early, at 7pm — his first meal of the
day, having lived on coffee since morning.

- **Bread and dips**, one spicy, one tomato.
- **Beef skewers**, ordered instead of tagine because he fancied them, with
  vegetables rather than fries.
- **Served in under five minutes** — the fastest service he says he's had.
- **Very tender and well seasoned.** He had expected a tourist trap charging high
  prices for average food and says it wasn't.

## The hammam

The end of the day and his favourite part of it. The menu offers several
packages — a royal hammam, a chocolate hammam, massages by the hour — and he
takes a combined hammam and massage across three rooms.

- **Marble throughout**, and you lie on a heated stone. He's sweating immediately
  and says the heat is what makes it work.
- **A hand scraper takes off the dead skin** — hard, brittle, brush-like. He
  rates the pain **five out of ten** and says the point is the parts of yourself
  you can never clean, particularly your back.
- **Then a chocolate and coffee scrub**, which smells overwhelmingly of coffee.
- **Then a face mask.**
- He is told the hammam originated in Morocco.

His verdict: the best hammam he has done.

## Harry's tips

- **Check the exchange rate before you walk into the medina.** He didn't, said so
  on camera, and it cost him both negotiations.
- **Use the walk-away — but expect it to work less well here.** These are the
  best hagglers he's met.
- **Go to the mosque after 7pm.** It's shut before that.
- **Book Rick's Café, and don't bring a camera.** Both are why he didn't get in.
- **Arrive at restaurants early** if you haven't booked.
- **Do the hammam, and pick the combined package.** His favourite of the ones he
  has had anywhere.
- **Watch the person serving you.** The shoe cleaner's warning about a passer-by
  was the most useful thing anybody told him all day.

## Source

- [Underground Moroccan Massage Hits the Spot 🇲🇦](/videos/mPixwjP8LgQ.md) —
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPixwjP8LgQ