Tangier: Morocco’s Hidden Gem Captivates Artists and Travelers Alike

In a publication, The Daily Telegraph highlights the charm of Tangier. While its population has grown from 400,000 in the 1970s to over 1.3 million today with modern neighborhoods, Tangier has managed to preserve its picturesque appearance, notes the British daily, noting that the old medina of Tangier still unfolds in a maze of dead ends, narrow alleys and improbable stairs, descending from the kasbah to the Strait of Gibraltar. Tangier was and remains a source of inspiration for writers and artists, the publication emphasizes.

Interior designer, portraitist, cosmopolitan socialite, cabaret singer, writer and aesthete from the British aristocracy, David Herbert is among the artists who fell under the charm of Tangier. He settled there in 1933, making his residence an iconic and lively meeting point for the expatriate British community. This son of the 15th Earl of Pembroke died of kidney failure in 1995. He was buried in the St. Andrew’s Cemetery in Tangier. "He loved Morocco," can be read on his gravestone.

The American writer and traveler, Paul Bowles had also set his sights on Tangier. He settled there in 1947 and lived there until his death in 1999 from a heart attack at the age of 88. In 1949, he published "The Sheltering Sky" (Un thé au Sahara) which was adapted for the cinema in 1990 by Bernardo Bertolucci, under the title "The Sheltering Sky," in which he appears as an actor (playing the narrator) at the beginning and end of the film. Another artist in love with the Tangier destination: Christopher Gibbs, a British aesthete and antique dealer, a figure of the London sixties. He settled there in 2006 and contributed to the preservation of the Anglican Church of St. Andrew in the city, built in 1894 on land donated by Sultan Hassan I to Queen Victoria. This church in Moorish style has a minaret-inspired bell tower and an Arabic inscription above the choir.

For The Daily Telegraph, "Tangier has the strangest ways of unfolding its magic." The "city of dreams" retains its aura, between tradition and modernity, concludes the publication.