I had long wanted to stay in a place connected to Tangier’s literary past. El Muniria interested me not as a hotel, but as a point on a personal map. Today, that history survives mostly in the form of portraits lining the corridors, and little else survives. But that hardly mattered. I knew why I was coming, and what I was — and was not — expecting.

The location is genuinely good. Gibraltar is just below, although not quite from the window. I only saw it from one very specific position: if I sat down to write and looked sideways, at the right angle. A few minutes uphill is the Grand Café de Paris, tied not to any single generation, but to the art bohemia of Tangier’s Interzone period — a reminder that the city’s myths were once lived, not curated.

In the evenings, loud music from the bar carries on until late, which can make rest difficult. The staff were moderately friendly — polite, efficient, without any particular warmth.

In the end, El Muniria is not about comfort. It is about context, about choosing a place for what it once meant, rather than what it currently offers. For me, that was enough.