Tangier city of secrets in Morocco

The Tangier city had a reputation for intrigue during its years as an International Zone, a glamour that attracted artists and heiresses alike. Juliet Highet goes behind the scenes to find the secret places of Tangier and its coast.

« That African perdition called Tangier:’ remarked Mark Twain about the oldest continually inhabited city in Morocco, the original gateway to Africa from Europe, controlled by a rollcall of different powers down the millenia.

Just 15 kms across the Strait of Gibraltar from Spain, and at the western entrance to the Mediterranean, Tangier has always been an alluring prize. Like a Paul Klee painting it sprawls flat-roofed in shades of white and grubbier grey across low hills and around a very useful port, its skyline elegiacally pierced by minarets, domes, and Christian spires – as well as satellite dishes and TV aerials. For this is a quintessentially eclectic, tolerant city, immediately to the north of the Rif mountains which separate Tangier’s more Mediterranean culture from the rest of Morocco.

Controlled at times during its history by the Portuguese, the Spanish and the British (the latter briefly and somewhat ignominiously), it was considered too hot to handle during the first part of this century, and so from 1912 to 1956 it was declared an International Zone. It was during this period as an International City, misruled by foreign consuls and lacking regulations, that Tangier acquired its awesome reputation for intrigue and indulgence – drooled over by a rich corpus of literature, film and art.