Morocco’s capital is a historic seaside jewel. Where are the tourists?

The National Photography Museum in Rabat, Morocco’s capital city, sits right on the Atlantic Ocean inside a 19th-century fortress. On a recent visit, I was surprised to find just a few people inside admiring its innovative galleries. The only other people enjoying the stunning views outside were two fishermen, casting into the crashing waves.

I wondered the same thing I do every time I’m in Rabat: How do so many travelers miss this city?

Most visitors to Morocco want to see Marrakesh, Fes and Tangier, and for good reason. But Rabat is Morocco’s most underrated city in plain sight, a tranquil and historic seaside jewel that hasn’t yet turned into one big Instagram reel. You can still discover it on its own terms.

When the French colonized Morocco in the early 20th century, they envisioned Casablanca as Morocco’s New York – the international port and economic hub – and Rabat as its Washington. But Rabat has grown into much more than a government center. Today, it boasts a relaxed and pristine medina, or walled old town; a dramatic and undeveloped coastline; my favorite collection of museums in the country; and a new wave of artists and artisans energizing boutiques and galleries across town.

All without the crowds you’ll find elsewhere.

“It’s a city where you can breathe easily,” said Rachid Maalal, director of the region’s new heritage preservation initiative.

A historic old city and ruins

The biggest attraction of most Moroccan cities is their medina, whether it’s the labyrinthine streets of Fes or the vibrant bazaars of Marrakesh. Rabat is no different, but its smaller size makes it easier to explore and find idyllic streets, quirky dead ends and the intricate doorways to zawiyas, or Sufi lodges. You can follow cloth-covered trays of dough as Rabatis carry them to the communal ovens or, in the evenings, just keep walking until you encounter a flattop serving griddle breads coated in honey.

As in the walled cities of Marrakesh and Fes, old houses built around courtyards in Rabat’s medina are being repurposed into small hotels. The best ones – like Dar Rabiaa, just off Avenue Legza in the medina – showcase intricate stucco designs and wood-carved mashrabiya, as well as stunning Moroccan rugs and textiles.

Anytime I’m in the medina, but especially in the mornings, I like to make my way to Rue Bouqroune. At its busiest, vendors line both sides of the street, where you’ll encounter half a dozen varieties of mint piled high on little tables, silver sardines on big trays of ice, and beautiful “beldi” eggs still with traces of feathers stuck to them.

The medina’s most touristy street, Rue des Consuls, is where you’ll find shops selling rugs, pottery and painted wooden platters. Just off it is an inventive new art space called Tassarout, whose goal is to foster appreciation for traditional crafts like zellij (tile mosaics) through hands-on classes. It’s all housed amid bazaar stalls in a lovingly restored 17th-century funduq, where merchant caravans once stayed and stored their wares and animals.

But perhaps no place brings together the old, the new and Rabat’s natural beauty quite like Chellah, a maze of ruins that dates to at least the third century B.C., spanning Morocco’s Phoenician, Roman and Islamic pasts. A necropolis and UNESCO World Heritage site, it recently reopened with renovations to its massive 14th-century gate and the addition of Ciconia, Rabat’s prettiest cafe.

The objective was to make Chellah “more than just a historic site,” Maalal explained. “We want to be a true cultural destination.” Ciconia’s name comes from the Latin term for the famous white storks that nest atop Chellah’s medieval towers. From the cafe, you can look across the wide Bou Regreg estuary to the brand-new Grand Theatre of Rabat, among the celebrated architect Zaha Hadid’s final designs, and the Mohammed VI Tower, one of the tallest towers in Africa.

Museum renaissance

Over the past decade, Morocco has poured money into its museum infrastructure, rehabilitating historic buildings and repurposing them for new collections across the country. Rabat has received the biggest boost.

The Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, one of a handful of gems located in the French-designed Ville Nouvelle, spearheaded that national movement. Its opening in 2014 brought contemporary Moroccan and international artists to a wider public, with exhibitions ranging from Moroccan postcolonial art to Cuban expatriate painters.

Down the street is the Bank al-Maghrib Museum, housed in an architectural masterpiece of a building that incorporates Moroccan aesthetic flourishes into modern European design. The museum, fresh off a recent renovation, recounts millennia of Moroccan history through old coins and some of the best Moroccan paintings of the last century. After a visit, stop by Cinéma Renaissance, an art-house theater with an airy upstairs cafe and the best views from its tiny balconies down Rabat’s prettiest boulevard, Avenue Mohammed V.

But the National Photography Museum, in the quaint L’Océan neighborhood, is Rabat’s most spectacular offering. The exhibition space is small but well curated, with a series of subterranean rooms connected by dim hallways. A recent show pulled together innovative photographers from across Africa. The moody interior offers a stark contrast with the museum’s exterior, where the geometric lines of the 19th-century concrete structure – Morocco’s first – intersect with the bright blues of the Atlantic and the sky.

Markets, burgeoning shopping scene

Rabat’s produce markets are one of its great pleasures, and I like to get a feel for the rhythms of daily city life at the morning one in L’Océan, around the Centre Culturel Ben Barka. On Fridays, you’ll see stacks of bright-orange pumpkins, sliced into portions and ready for Rabatis to add to their Friday couscous. Grab an outdoor table afterward at nearby Himmi, a stylish cafe and patisserie, for coffee and croissants, or go heartier with eggs and khlea, an intensely flavored Moroccan jerky dried and preserved in its own fat.

Shoppers in Rabat also can find terrific painted woodwork and, in its souks, great kilim carpets and pottery, though the city has never had the shopping reputation of Marrakesh or Tangier. A small movement of small business owners is trying to grow it.

Husband and wife Wassim El Hallioui and Zaynab Salik are a big part of that movement. They’re the founders of MaliMalo, a shop located down the road from the beach with an unobstructed Atlantic view, which sells one of the most impeccably curated collections of modern Moroccan crafts anywhere, including massive pastel rugs and striking pottery painted with bold lines and evil eye motifs. El Hallioui describes the couple’s mission partly as education.

“We want to be a shop for all, not just for tourists,” he said. “We want to keep prices accessible, but we truly want to tell stories about our culture and our traditions.” You can witness the same energy elsewhere in Rabat, including at the multimedia art space and publishing house Kulte.

Not far away is Le 17 Océan, a gorgeous emporium of Moroccan jewelry and artwork. It’s housed in an old auto repair shop where founder Nathalie Marmey’s grandmother used to bring her car.

“We try to constantly renew ourselves,” Marmey said, and she credits tireless sourcing for the shop’s popularity among Rabatis. Take a seat at 17’s adjoining cafe, which serves healthy but substantial salads and strong coffee, while you feel the ocean breeze come up the hill.

Graham H. Cornwell is a historian of the Middle East and North Africa based at George Washington University. You can follow him on Twitter at @ghcornwell.