In the 1950s, Tangier was a place for the beatnik set to escape to. It was close to Europe, but warmer and more relaxed, and the\u00a0caf\u00e9s\u00a0of the northerly Moroccan city soon filled up with creative types, including the authors Tennessee Williams and William S Burroughs.<\/p>\n
Today, you can still sense that spirit in some of\u00a0Tangier’s\u00a0famous hangouts. Places like\u00a0Caf\u00e9\u00a0Hafa, with its network of balconies painted in fading white and blue, where there\u2019s a cacophony of conversation and clicking dice games, wiry waiters hefting glasses of mint tea to ornately tiled tables, and glorious vistas out towards the outline of southern Spain, a mere 2km away.<\/p>\n
Tangier\u2019s\u00a0reputation as a hub of social freedom and licentiousness can be traced back to its former life as an \u2018international zone\u2019. Between 1924 and 1956, it was controlled (and \u2018controlled\u2019 is a generous term here) not by the Moroccan government, but by a ragged consortium of foreign powers, including France, Spain and Britain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
VISITING BEAT GENERATION WRITERS OF THE 1950S LEFT A LASTING IMPRESSION ON THIS BOHEMIAN MOROCCAN PORT CITY<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8714,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[807],"class_list":["post-8711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-cinemas","destinations-morocco","destinations-tangier","subcategories-bakeries-and-coffee-shops","subcategories-bars","subcategories-film","inspirations-arts-culture","inspirations-city","inspirations-food-drink"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n