Hassan Tower, the Mausoleum of Mohammed V, Chellah and Sale

East and south of the central boulevards, three sites tell the deeper story of the Bou Regreg estuary: the unfinished 12th-century imperial mosque complex at Hassan Tower, the walled Roman and medieval necropolis of Chellah, and the historic sister city of Sale directly across the water.

Hassan Tower and the Mausoleum of Mohammed V

Overlooking the Bou Regreg estuary roughly twenty minutes' walk east of the Kasbah of the Udayas (or a direct ride to the Place du 16 Novembre tram stop), a vast stone esplanade holds two monuments from different eras. In 1195, Almohad Caliph Yaqub al-Mansur began constructing what was intended to be the largest mosque in the western Islamic world, topped by an 86-metre minaret modeled on the Koutoubia in Marrakech and the Giralda in Seville. When the Caliph died in 1199, work halted permanently: the carved red sandstone Hassan Tower (Tour Hassan) reached 44 metres, surrounded by more than two hundred shattered marble and stone column drums damaged further by the 1755 Lisbon earthquake.

At the southern edge of the esplanade stands the gleaming white Mausoleum of Mohammed V, completed in 1971 by Vietnamese architect Cong Vo Toan and four hundred Moroccan master craftsmen (maâlems). Guarded at the portals by mounted royal guards, the interior viewing gallery looks down under a hand-carved gilded cedar dome onto the white onyx sarcophagus of King Mohammed V, flanked by the tombs of his sons King Hassan II and Prince Moulay Abdallah.

Chellah: Roman Sala Colonia meets a Merenid Necropolis

Two kilometres south outside the Almohad walls (a brief ride in a blue petit taxi), the crenelated ochre gate of Chellah opens into Rabat's most evocative sanctuary. Follow the terraced garden path downhill to where two civilisations overlap: the paved decumanus, triumphal arch, capitolium and forum of the Roman port of Sala Colonia, and the walled 14th-century Islamic royal burial complex built by Merenid Sultan Abu al-Hasan Ali. Inside stand a spring-fed ablutions basin, a ruined medersa with zellij tilework, the tomb of Abu al-Hasan and a stone minaret crowned by huge nests of white storks.

Rowing or riding the tram across to Sale

Do not treat Sale across the river as a mere suburb. Take a wooden rowboat from the jetty below the Kasbah (or ride the tram across the Hassan II Bridge to Bab Lamrissa) to walk through the 13th-century water gate of Bab el-Mrissa into Sale's working Medina, where the Great Mosque sits beside the jewel-like 1341 Medersa of Abu al-Hasan, carved in stucco, zellij and cedarwood.