There are various options. One is to take the afternoon ferry to Tangier, stay one night (see below for suggestions for accommodation in Tangier) and take a taxi to Asilah the next morning. The other is to take the morning ferry to Tangier, and get the taxi driver to meet you in the port.
Taxi driver Rudi : 00.212. (0) 61 50 08 61 is reliable, quiet, drives carefully and speaks good English. Please tell him Mme. Zoë from Tarifa has recommended him. He charges (Nov.2005) Dirhams 500 = approx. €.50 (pay in either currency) to drive you to Asilah, to wait for you there, and to pick you up after you have had lunch and drive you back. Total driving time is approximately 45 minutes. It is interesting to go on the new autoroute and return on the old road. If you want to buy some Moroccan wine to take into your hotel to have with supper (Hotel Continental does not serve wine) tell Rudi well in advance and he will take the road past the huge supermarket (Marjan) where you have ample choice (I recommend Beauvallon or Côteaux d’Atlas or Medaillon).

--- Day trip to Asilah Morocco ---

ASILAH is known as the Artist’s town because of the annual art festival and the resultant murals. The joy of this small, seaside town OUT OF HIGH SEASON is that it is a no-hassle place where a firm but friendly ‘no thank you’ is accepted with good grace (this can be very different in Tangier). The old town within the walls (a former Portuguese stronghold) is bright and colourful with narrow white, and very clean, streets.

--- Day trip to Asilah Morocco ---

Suggested schedule:

If you leave Tangier around 10.30 you will be in Asilah around 11.20. Ask Rudi to drop you on the corner of the main street opposite the old wall, and have a first coffee and croissant in La Symphonie des Douceurs (which also has an excellent, clean toilet – a detail which should not be overlooked in Morocco!). They also do a ‘set breakfast’ which includes 2 eggs, and all that for Dhr. 25 (€.2.50)!

Go out of the café, turn Right, and follow the old wall round (bay with small fishing boats is on your right). Enter through the old town wall. As you enter the square, bear right and then just follow the road as it curves alongside the sea-wall to the left. You go under a couple of arches, and come to the end (‘T-junction’) where you look through the wall at the rocky coastline, and turn right up some steps where you have a wonderful view back over Asilah and down the coast. Below you is the brightly painted dome (turquoise) and the tiled rooftop floor of what is the cemetery. A photographers’ dream. The turquoise of the dome extends into the blue-turquoise of the sea …

--- Day trip to Asilah Morocco ---

Retrace your steps and take the second road to your right (Rue Jamaa Ben Ayad). Follow this road. Note in particular a fantastic (my personal favourite) wall painting (local figures) almost immediately on your right. After this it’s up to you to stroll up and down the small shopping streets, eventually bringing you back to the square. Standing on this square, instead of going left to go back under the arch where you came in, take the straight white walled street which is directly in front of you. Follow this street. On your left is a large, spacious art gallery you are welcome to enter and wander round.
Exit via this street and you are back where the taxi dropped you.

--- Day trip to Asilah Morocco ---

Follow the boulevard, passing several restaurants on your right, until you come to one on a corner (Ave. Ibn Rochd) where you can eat in or out (plastic curtains protect you from the wind) called Restaurant Garcia – very good price/quality, you can also get wine – and this is a favourite of the well-dressed local families. (Toilets are very adequate!) You can phone for a reservation (Spanish, French and some English spoken): tel. 039 41 74 65.
Note: they eat earlier in Morocco than in Spain, so suggest you get here around 13.00 if you want to find a table – or earlier at weekends. Very inexpensive. Finish your meal with a Café solo – this is the real Arabian coffee, strong, delicious, with the grains at the bottom (my rather conservative mother wrote it off as being ‘pure Nile mud’).

--- Day trip to Asilah Morocco ---

To date, Asilah has a village-y air of authenticity, the mule-drawn carts abound, and women ride on their donkeys, colourful baskets full of local produce hanging on either side.

To see the really local market, you can also opt to start off with the ‘fruit and vegetable and chickens’ market – when the taxi has dropped you, you turn left and follow the old wall; after several large ‘pavement cafés’ you can enter through the wall and it’s all ‘local colour’.

--- Day trip to Asilah Morocco ---

It’s now 14.30, and Rudi has picked you up in front of Restaurant Garcia. He drives you back to your hotel in Tangier by 15.30 – or to the port for the ferry at … check schedules!

Yet another alternative for the cost conscious and adventurous is to take a ‘share taxi’ to and from Tangier to Asilah. This costs you around €.1.50 one way for the 45 kms! However, first you have to take a petit taxi (blue) to the bus station. Then wait until the taxi is full, and you will probably share with rather corpulent locals. For the return journey you go to the upper square in Asilah. It’s fun – I’ve done it often.

--- Day trip to Asilah Morocco ---

You can also go by train, but the new railway station is now at the end of the Tangier boulevard, and you need a taxi to get there. The train goes to Marrakech, but stops at Asilah and there is a little local bus waiting to take you into Asilah.

Suggestion for accommodation in Asilah: Patio de la Luna – small, charming, a lovely little rooftop terrace overlooking the Portuguese fortifications. The hardest beds and the hardest pillows I have ever come across.

- 125€ p/p incl. guide, return tickets ferry Tarifa Tangier and lunch.

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TANGIER - 1 day incl. private guide and ferry tickets

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