4 Best Sights in Rabat, Casablanca, and the North Atlantic Coast, Morocco

Turn left around the corner of the Great Mosque, and you'll see on your right the Abou el Hassan Medersa. Built by the Merenid sultan of that name in the 14th century, it's a fine example of the traditional Koranic school. Like the Bou Inania in Fez or the Ben Youssef in Marrakesh, this madrassa has beautiful intricate plasterwork around its central courtyard, and a fine mihrab (prayer niche) with a ceiling carved in an interlocking geometrical pattern representing the cosmos. Upstairs, on the second and third floors, you can visit the little cells where the students used to sleep, and from the roof you can see the entire city.

Currently an art gallery, this city gate was built by Yaqoub al Mansour in 1197. To see it, go outside the city walls and look to the right of the modern arches. Originally a fortification, the gate has an elaborately decorated arch topped by two carved shells. The entrance leads into a room with no gate behind it; you have to turn left into another room and then right into a third room to see the door that once led into Rabat.

A heavily fortified town for centuries, Salé still has many traces of its eventful history preserved within the old medina walls, and many landmarks are national heritage sites or monuments. The magnificent Bab el-Mrissa is one of the oldest and largest gates in the country; built by an Almohad sultan in the 13th century, it was linked to the river by a canal. On the northern wall next to the Bab Sebta, there’s an 11th-century, square-shape fortress. Looking over the mouth of the Bou Regreg River, is the Borj Adoumoue or Bastion des Larmes (Bastion of Tears); the current building dates from the 18th century, and cannons gaze over the water to this day.

The Borj Adoumoue, or Bastion des Larmes (Fortress of Tears) was a pirates' prison in the city walls of Salé and is now a museum. It was built by the infamous Salé Rovers, a group of Barbary pirates, as their headquarters. Cannons pierce the walls and there are underground dungeons were slaves were once kept.