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History & Patrimony

Asilah, history of the city

Où dormir à Asilah?

Asilah, history of the city - 1

Asilah, history of the city - 2

Balneal city, 46 km to the south of Tangier, with an old medina with white houses (the windows and the doors are painted in blue, yellow and green), girded with beautiful ochre ramparts built in the end of the 15th century by the Portuguese.

Asilah, history of the city - 3

City with tumultuous past during more than two millenniums, invaded by Carthaginians, then by the Romans, and having resisted to the Norman attacks from Sicily in the 10th century. Passed then under the domination of the Omeyades of Cordoba in 972, before falling under the Portuguese authority in 1471 (which came with a fleet of more than 500 ships and 30 000 men!...). After the famous battle of the Three Kings in 1578 (with the death of the king of Portugal), came the Spanish occupation, and

Asilah, history of the city - 4

it is only in the end of the 17th century that the sultan Moulay Ismail freed the city once again. In the beginning of the 20th century, Asilah will become the den of Raissouni, a famous gangster of the Rif region, which held to ransom the populations but will be finally driven out by the Spanish in 1924. They will remain Masters of the city until the independence.

PS : To see: - The old city and the ramparts, with its Bab Homar gate, bored in a big rounded tower surmounted by an escutcheon of the weapons of the kings of Portugal. - The Centre Hassan II of International Meetings, which accommodates during the summer festival, conferences, exposures and cultural meetings in which take part artists from all the Mediterranean basin; open rooms all the year present painters works originating from Asilah. - The Palace Raissouni (or Palace of the Culture), built in the beginning of the 20th century and sheltering art workshops and cultural & artistic international meetings during the summer festival. - The ' bastion ', which dominates the rocks, where the visitor can admire, at the sunsets, the panorama of the ocean and the old city.

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