The gorgeous whitewashed resort town of Assilah
feels like somewhere on a Greek island, but the tapas and paella on the
Spanish menus in the restaurants and the wrought-iron windows on the
white houses are but a few reminders that the town was Spanish territory
for a long time. Assilah is an easy and hassle-free introduction to Morocco
and, with a good selection of budget hotels and restaurants, and a
burgeoning art scene, the town has become a favourite stop on the
traveller’s trail of the North Atlantic coast.
The
town’s mayor lives in the picturesque medina and has vowed to make it
as clean as Switzerland. The old medina has been seriously gentrified in
the last few years as more and more houses have been bought by affluent
Moroccans and Europeans, mainly Spanish. The town is sleepy for most of
the year, but in the summer months the population grows from 12,000 to
110,000, when Moroccan families descend here, as elsewhere along the
coast. The small town is then completely overrun, the beaches are packed
and the touts come out in force. The best time to visit is in spring or
autumn when the weather is still pleasant but the crowds are gone.
Assilah has had a turbulent history as a small, but strategic port since it began life as the Carthaginian
settlement of Zilis. During the Punic Wars the people backed Carthage,
and when the region fell to the Romans, the locals were shipped to Spain
and replaced with Iberians. From then on, Assilah was inexorably linked
with the Spanish and with their numerous battles for territory.
As Christianity conquered the forces of Islam
on the Iberian Peninsula in the 14th and 15th centuries, Assilah felt
the knock-on effects. In 1471 the Portuguese sent 477 ships with 30,000
men, captured the port and then built the walls that still surround the
medina, a trading post on their famous gold route across Africa. In
1578, King Dom Sebastian of Portugal embarked on an ill-fated crusade
from Assilah. He was killed, and Portugal (and its Moroccan possessions)
passed into the hands of the Spanish, who remained for a very long
time.
Assilah was recaptured by Moulay Ismail in
1691. In the 19th century, continuing piracy prompted Austria and then
Spain to send their navies to bombard the town. Its most famous renegade
was Er-Raissouli, one of the most colourful bandits ever raised in the
wild Rif Mountains. Early in the 20th century, Er-Raissouli used Assilah
as his base, becoming the bane of the European powers. Spain made
Assilah part of its protectorate from 1911 until 1956.
