Flanked by a strip of fertilizer factories, a vast grain silo and sardine-canning plants,
SAFI is not the prettiest of Moroccan towns. It does, however, provide a glimpse of an active, modern and working community and the old
Medina in its centre, walled and turreted by the Portuguese, holds a certain interest. The city - it merits the name with a population of over 300,000 - also has a strong industrial-artisan tradition, with a whole quarter devoted to
pottery workshops . These have a virtual monopoly on the green, heavily glazed roof tiles used on palaces and mosques, as well as providing Morocco's main pottery exports, in the form of bowls, plates and garden pots.
The main interest in Safi is in its Medina , the adjoining Dar El Bahar fort, and the Colline des Potiers , the potters' quarter on the hill northeast of the Medina. Further out, on the Oualidia road, is the main industrial quarter and the new port.
South of Safi, the coast is heavily polluted and industrialized, and for a beach escape you'll want to head north. Local buses #10 and #15 run to Lalla Fatna and Cap Beddouza from the Place de l'Indépendance. In summer there are also local buses to Souira Kedima .
Dar El Bahar, Kechla and the Medina
The
Dar El Bahar , or Château de la Mer (Mon-Fri 8.30am-noon & 2.30-6.30pm; 10dh), is the main remnant of Safi's brief Portuguese occupation (1508-41). Sited on the waterfront, above the old port, it was built - in the Manueline style of the day - as the governor's residence, and saw subsequent use as a fortress and prison. Within, you can see the old prison cells at the foot of a spiral staircase to the ramparts, where a line of Dutch and Spanish cannon is ranged pointing out to sea.
The old Medina walls climb north, enclosing the Medina, to link with another and larger fortress known as the Kechla - again, Portuguese in origin, and housing the town's modern prison until 1990. It's now the National Ceramics Museum (8.30am-noon & 2-6pm, closed Tues; 10dh) with a not too exciting collection of local ceramics, marginally better than that in the Dar Batha Museum in Fes. Of rather more interest are further cannon (British this time), garden courtyards and Portuguese coats-of-arms.
In the Medina proper, there is one further relic of the Portuguese, the Chapelle Portugaise . This was the choir of their cathedral - left uncompleted on their withdrawal - and again has Manueline motifs. It's most easily found if you enter the quarter from Avenue Moulay Youssef. Moving round from here, you reach the Rue du Socco - the main street - which leads uphill past a series of souks , food and domestic-goods markets, to the old city gate of Bab Chaaba and, through it, to the Colline des Potiers. En route, and just before the city gate, you pass through the Souk de Poterie . If you are looking to buy goods, you are likely to find better pieces here than in the showrooms at the foot of the Colline des Potiers itself.
Although non-Muslims are forbidden entry, it's worth mentioning two important Sufi shrines in the Medina: the Marabout Sidi Bou Dheb (at the bottom end of Rue du Socco) and the Zaouia of Hamidouch (near the Kechla). Sidi Bou Dheb is perhaps the best-known Sufi saint in Morocco and both his marabout and the Hamdouchia zaouia host moussems (held in May in recent years) attended by their respective brotherhoods; these feature music, dervish-type dancing and, often, trance self-mutilation with hatchets and knives. Heady stuff.
A more recent religious building is the Jewish meeting place and synagogue on Avenue Zerktouni. Built on the site of an ancient holy spot, it was opened in July 1993 under the patronage of the governor of Safi.
