Rabat is where New Zealanders on official or corporate business spend their time, and where leisure travellers consistently underestimate how much they will enjoy the city. The ministries and most of the diplomatic corps are here, and Rabat carries a measured, orderly feel a long way removed from Marrakech.
It rewards a proper look. The Chellah, on the city edge, was a Roman town called Sala Colonia before becoming a Merinid necropolis, and is now half garden and half ruin with storks nesting on the old minaret. The Kasbah of the Udayas is a blue-and-white quarter above the river mouth, and the Hassan Tower is the unfinished minaret of what would have been the largest mosque in the world.
Driving here is easy by Moroccan standards, but the embassy quarter, the government district and the medina all sit apart, and parking near the kasbah is tight. A driver removes the friction. Every booking is private and the rate is agreed in advance.
Why hire a driver here
- Ministries and missions are scattered citywide rather than in one quarter
- Under the kasbah walls the parking is unofficial and usually taken
- Virtually every international arrival lands at Casablanca, an hour off
- Built for commuters, the tram serves neither the Chellah nor the Udayas
- As a first or last night on a north-south route, Rabat works well
Included in every booking
- Fuel, tolls and the driver's fee for the agreed route
- Airport, hotel, embassy or Rabat-Ville station pickup
- English-speaking drivers as standard on the New Zealand site
- Waiting time between appointments at no extra hourly charge
- Bottled water and phone charging in the vehicle
