Gran Café Central

The Gran Café Central wears a faded facade of white and yellow, with tall arched doorways that open directly onto the bustling Petit Socco. This cafe served as the nerve center for the city’s international zone during the mid-twentieth century. Spies, writers, and smugglers gathered at these small marble tables to trade secrets and manuscripts. When the American novelist Paul Bowles sat here, he watched the entire cosmopolitan world of Tangier pass by in a single afternoon.