Hassan II Mosque

How to visit without missing the inside

The mistake at the Hassan II Mosque is treating it like a sight you stroll past. The seafront esplanade is free and genuinely impressive — a 210-metre minaret, the tallest in the world when it opened in 1993, over an Atlantic promontory — and plenty of visitors stop at the railings and leave. But this is one of the very few mosques in Morocco non-Muslims can go inside, and you can only do it on a fixed-time guided tour. You cannot wander in alone, so the whole day has to be planned around the slots rather than the other way round.

Tours run several times a day: roughly 09:00, 10:00, 11:00, 12:00 and 15:00 Saturday to Thursday, with an extra 16:00 added between mid-March and mid-September. Fridays are cut back to around 09:00, 10:00 and 15:00 because of the main weekly prayer, and the mosque closes to tourists during each of the five daily prayers. Foreign adults pay 140 MAD (about £11); foreign students and residents pay 70 MAD, children over six 30 MAD, and under-sixes go free. The mosque doesn’t sell tickets on its own website, so most people buy at the on-site ticket office shortly before a slot — arrive 20–30 minutes early in peak season, since the next tour can fill — or pre-book a guided tour to lock in a time.

What you actually see, and the dress code

The tour, about 45 minutes to an hour, takes you through the main prayer hall — hand-carved cedar ceilings, acres of Moroccan marble and zellij tilework, and a retractable roof weighing some 1,100 tonnes that opens in around five minutes over a hall built for 25,000 worshippers (80,000 more fit on the grounds outside). That interior is the point; the plaza is the free warm-up. Cover your shoulders, torso and knees — shorts and sleeveless tops are turned away for both sexes — and you’ll take your shoes off inside, with a bag provided to carry them. Women don’t need a headscarf for the tourist tour, but a scarf is handy. Tipping the guide a few dirhams at the end is normal.

Getting there: it’s a petit taxi from central Casablanca or the Corniche (insist on the meter or agree the fare first — it’s a short hop, well under £4), too far to walk comfortably from Casa-Port. Allow half a morning all in.

This is the single reason to stop in Casablanca, and it earns the stop — but only if you take the tour and go inside. Seen from the railings it’s just a very large building by the sea. Pair it with a half-day of the city’s faded Art Deco centre around Place Mohammed V, then take the train onward to Marrakech or Fez rather than stretching Casablanca into a multi-day stay.