Mehdia Kasbah

The mouth of the Sebou was a strategic point - the river was navigable inland and the estuary sheltered - and the site changed hands repeatedly: a Portuguese presence, then a Spanish fort built in the early seventeenth century, then capture by Moulay Ismail in 1681, who rebuilt it and gave it the monumental gate that still stands. What survives is a walled enclosure on the bluff with bastions, the gate with its carved stone frame, the governor's residence in ruins, and a good deal of collapse - it has never been comprehensively restored and parts are unstable. The position is the point: from the walls the Sebou winds inland one way and the Atlantic opens the other, with Mehdia's beach below and the Sidi Boughaba lake reserve behind. It is not signposted or interpreted and is usually empty, with local families using the grounds.

History

The site at the mouth of the Sebou began as a harbour building of about the 10th century, and in the 12th century the Almohad sultan Abd al-Mu'min built a dock and fort here from the timber of the nearby forest. In 1614 the Spanish built the La Mamora fortress on the rocks above the river mouth, to designs by the royal engineer Cristóbal de Rojas, and its citadel wall became the base of the present kasbah, restored in the Alaouite period (Wikipedia, Kasbah Mahdiyya).

Highlights

• A contested river mouth - Portuguese, Spanish and then Moroccan hands in turn.
• Moulay Ismail's gate - a carved stone entrance from the rebuilding after 1681.
• Ruins on a bluff - bastions, walls and a collapsed residence, unrestored.
• The Sebou and the ocean - the river inland one way, the Atlantic the other.

When to go

October to April. An hour; sunset over the estuary.

Before you go

The fortress is unrestored and parts are genuinely unsafe - walls and floors are unstable. There is no signage or interpretation. It is often empty and unsupervised. The beach below is crowded in summer.

Nearby

Sidi Boughaba lake is behind; Kenitra is upstream.

Key facts