Kasbah of the Udayas

Where it sits. The Kasbah of the Udayas is a walled citadel on a rocky spur at the mouth of the Bou Regreg river in Rabat, looking across the water to the old town of Salé and out over the Atlantic. It sits immediately north of Rabat's medina and above the beach, high enough that the wind off the ocean is constant. The whole ensemble is part of the UNESCO World Heritage inscription granted to Rabat in 2012, and it is one of the few places where the layers of Moroccan history, Almohad military, Alaouite palatial, corsair, colonial and modern, are stacked within a few hundred metres.

The story behind it. An Almoravid emir, Tashfin ibn Ali, built a ribat here in the 1140s to hold off the Almohads; the Almohads destroyed it and, in 1150 or 1151, Caliph Abd al-Mu'min raised a new kasbah on the same rock, complete with palace, mosque and an underground channel bringing water to the spur. His grandson Ya'qub al-Mansur then launched a far larger project, a fortified imperial capital called Ribat al-Fath, whose unfinished traces include the Hassan Tower and the great gates of Bab er-Rouah and Bab Oudaia. The kasbah gate, built around the 1190s, is the masterpiece: a monumental Almohad portal of carved sandstone with interlocking arches and a stepped interior passage designed so that attackers could never charge straight through. After al-Mansur died in 1199 the capital project stalled and the citadel emptied. It filled again in the 17th century with Andalusian refugees and corsairs of the Republic of Bou Regreg, who raided shipping as far as the Atlantic coasts of Europe. They built the semaphore platform on the north-east edge, and later the sqala artillery terrace and the Tower of the Corsairs, a squat round battery rising only three metres above the water and hidden behind the sqala so its four cannon could surprise pursuing ships. The name Udayas came only in the 19th century, from a guich tribe settled here to keep other tribes in check.

On screen. The kasbah is a confirmed location for Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015): the production filmed here on 8 and 9 September 2014, having also closed the stadium in Marrakesh for those two days, during the Moroccan block of the shoot that ran from late August into late September. Rabat, Casablanca and Agadir supplied the rest. The appeal to a stunt unit is obvious once you are inside, because the kasbah is a compressed maze of blind corners, stepped lanes barely wide enough for two people and rooftop lines that connect, exactly the geometry that a chase sequence needs. Rabat and Salé have long been a quieter alternative to Marrakesh for productions that want Moroccan streets without the crowds.

What you actually see. Inside the gate, the Rue Jamaa runs the length of the upper kasbah from Bab Oudaia to the semaphore platform, past the Old Mosque, the oldest in Rabat in its foundation. The lanes are painted blue to about shoulder height and whitewashed above, a scheme applied in the 20th century that has become the district's signature, and residents still live behind those doors, so quiet feet and no photographs into open houses. The south-western quarter dates from the 18th-century Alaouite period, including the pavilion built by Sultan Moulay Ismail that now houses a museum. Beside it, the Andalusian Garden was laid out under the French protectorate in the early 20th century, a formal walled garden of orange trees, bougainvillea, cypress and running water, with cats in every patch of shade. The Café Maure on the terrace below serves mint tea and almond pastries on a platform directly above the estuary, facing Salé; the small boats that ferry passengers across the Bou Regreg for a few dirhams leave from the sand beneath it. From the semaphore platform at the northern tip you look straight out to the Atlantic surf breaking on the bar at the river mouth, with Rabat's beach on one side and the walls of Salé on the other.

Getting there and timing. Rabat is an hour from Casablanca and just over an hour from Tangier on the Al Boraq high-speed line; the city tram stops near the medina and the walk up to the gate takes ten minutes. Entry to the kasbah itself is free; the museum is ticketed. Spring, from March to May, is the best season, when the garden is in flower and the Atlantic wind is mild; autumn is a close second. Summer is hot inland but tempered here by the ocean, and winter brings rain and grey skies with very few visitors. Early morning gives the cleanest light on the blue lanes and the emptiest terrace at the semaphore platform.