Last weekend we went to Kenitra and Mehdia, which are sometimes know as Port Lyautey. This is the 75th anniversary of the landings in Morocco to start the North African campaign. Lonely Planet does not have either place in the index, so we were unable to get much information. In particular I wanted to knew where the petit taxis could go, but we had to wait until we arrived.
We wanted to go to the Kasbah of Mehdia, the beach, and Sidi-Boughaba national park. On arrival, we found all of those were outside the city limits of Kenitra, with the train station, so the petit taxi could only take us to the grand taxi stand ($1 for two). Then once the grand taxi filled up, off to the beach ($0.70 each).
Petit taxi at the railroad station in Kenitra. Each city has a different color for its petit taxis, and if they are caught outside the city limits, they are in trouble.
The beach at Mehdia.
The seafood restaurant at the Mehdia beach. It was Sunday lunch, and a large number of families were coming to restaurant for lunch.
Moroccan restaurants specialize in fresh fruit and vegetable juices. They always come with at straw.
We got grilled fish: swordfish, salmon, and Saint Pierre. This was a subdued plate; they had huge plates, and were doing a booming business with those.
Mehdia Kasbah, which resisted the US landings 75 years ago. It overlooks the river.
View of the kasbah, out to the Atlantic.
Route of our day in Kenitra. The purple points mark the train, petit taxi, grand taxi, and finally another petit taxi back to the train station. The cyan (1 meter/sec) shows where we walked; one of our longest walks of the time in Morocco. Just to the left of the speed legend is the entrance to the former US Naval Air Station.
On return, I looked again in Lonely Planet, and while the two towns don't rate an entry in the index, they have very brief mentions, and the national park gets a small paragraph.
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