After decades of neglect, the north Moroccan city, once talked about in the same breath as London, Paris and New York, is undergoing a renaissance. During its glory years from the mid-1920’s, it was an international zone, administered by a joint convention including France, Spain and Britain. The big mystery is how and why Tangier was left out in the cold for so long. One obvious answer seems to lie in its long neglect by former King of Morocco Hassan II who, for an entire generation, disdained its international appeal (and undeniably notorious reputation for sleaze and scandal) and even made a point of diverting national investment away from Tangier. However, all that has changed under his son, King Mohammed VI, who came to the throne in 1999. He saw the economic potential of a city at the crossroads of Europe, Africa, the Mediterranean and the Atlantic and now Tangier is on the verge of having not only Africa’s biggest port, but North Africa’s biggest car factory and Africa’s first high-speed rail link, to Casablanca, due to open in 2016. Read More…

Tangier