Sunrise over the Atlas/Photo by Mac
Privately funded restorations of Tangier’s most famous landmarks are helping to return Tangier to its former glory. The Librairie des Colonnes, the legendary bookshop haunt of Samuel Beckett and other authors was restored in 2011. At the Grand Hotel Villa de France, a whole room has been preserved in honor of painter Henri Matisse and reopened last year. The Tangier Inn, the famous hangout of the beat generation, had a facelift last year too.
Read More:
http://www.theguardian.com/tra…ored-to-former-glory
I’m happy to see this, even if the city has been a perfectly pleasant place to visit for a long time. Tourists who base their travels on what “they” say have been loving to hate Tangier without bothering to find out for themselves (day trips from Spain don’t count, you could dislike anywhere under those circumstances). So it sounds like the city is now actively revising it’s reputation, earned long ago and no which longer applies. Very good and thanks for this Rob.
Sometimes I wonder whether cities are really harmed by those “they says.” It may keep them free of excess visits by people looking for the wrong thing, leaving them to keep more of their true character.