Hassan II Mosque

The Hassan II Mosque, in Casablanca, is an amazing feat of modern architecture. The mosque is partly suspended over the ocean by underwater columns, and refers to the Koran verse "The Throne of God on Water". It took 6 years to build, from 1987-1993, and took 12,500 people to build. Every square inch of the Mosque is covered in tile and carvings and designs. Everywhere you look, there are layers and layers of detail.

The Mosque is huge, and has the tallest religious minaret in the world. To get some idea of how absolutely massive the mosque is, here's a picture of Max standing in front of one of the doors of the mosque. The whole door doesn't even fit in the picture.

We took the mosque tour, and I really wish we had been there when the water was on. There's fountains all around the outside, and there are channels with clear bottoms on the floor of the mosque. Once again, in a group of tourists, we were the most conservatively dressed. I suppose it helps us to make a good impression, but I thought that the dress would have been much more conservative. After the tour, we went to look at the beach next to the mosque. I've noticed that around Morocco, they use these weird cement pylons to combat erosion. They look like piles of giant concrete jacks.