Hotel El Minzah

1930 grande dame hotel with Moorish-Spanish architecture

The grandest of Tangier's surviving classic hotels, El Minzah opened in 1930 in a purpose-built blend of Moorish and Andalusi styles — tiled patios, a sunken garden, an indoor pool fed by an Andalusi-style fountain, and arcaded balconies looking down on the city. Even non-guests can wander in for a drink in the Caid's Bar (with its leather chesterfields and Churchill-era photographs) or for afternoon tea in the patio.

Rooms are sober and tile-floored rather than flashy; the value of the place is in the history, the location (a 5-minute walk to either the medina or the Boulevard Pasteur), and the unhurried atmosphere. The bar and the restaurant are themselves worth a visit independent of staying. Live Andalusi music many evenings.

Address: 85 Rue de la Liberté, Tangier.

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A story
The hotel opened in 1930 and was promptly enlisted as a meeting and message-drop venue during the Second World War. Operation Torch — the 1942 Allied landings in North Africa — was partly planned by American intelligence officers using a suite on the upper floor. Eisenhower, Churchill, Rita Hayworth, and Aristotle Onassis all stayed here in the decades that followed.

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