The Tangier American Legation Museum

The building was presented to the United States by the sultan in 1821 and served as its mission in Morocco for over a century and a half, which makes it the oldest American diplomatic property outside the country. It has been a museum since the twentieth century and it is best treated as a house museum: a warren of rooms and courtyards on both sides of the lane, joined by a bridge over the street, filled with paintings of Tangier and its bay, maps, photographs and furniture. One wing is devoted to the writer Paul Bowles, who lived in the city for decades, with manuscripts, letters and recordings of Moroccan music he collected. There is also a research library and a working programme teaching literacy and computing to women from the medina.

What you actually see

• The Bowles wing - manuscripts, photographs and the music recordings he made in Morocco.
• The painting rooms - nineteenth and twentieth-century views of Tangier and the bay.
• The bridge - the covered passage joining the two halves of the house over the lane.
• The library and courtyards - the reading room and tiled patios of the old mission.

When to go

Weekday mornings and early afternoons; the museum keeps limited hours and closes at midday in some seasons and at weekends, so confirm before walking down. It is indoors and works well on a wet or windy day, of which Tangier has plenty outside summer.

Honest expectations

Opening hours are erratic and people regularly arrive to a locked door. The layout is confusing, with stairs and level changes throughout and no lift. The collection is a house full of pictures rather than a curated exhibition, and if you have no interest in the literary history a lot of it will feel like other people's souvenirs. Finding the entrance in the medina lanes takes some doing.

Nearby

The Petit Socco, the Grand Mosque and the kasbah are all within the medina walk.