Tangier has been Phoenician trading post, Roman Tingis, Portuguese fortress, English dowry, and an international zone run by nine powers. Three days trace that layering through tombs, kasbahs, treaty rooms and legation archives.
Moulay Ismail's 1684 palace, built after the English withdrawal, now holds Tangier's archaeology: Volubilis mosaics, Punic funerary urns, and the Roman Navigation of Venus floor. Open 09:00–16:00, closed Tuesdays.
Roughly a dozen rectangular graves cut straight into the cliff above the Strait, dug by Phoenician settlers around the 7th–6th century BC and reused in Roman times. Unenclosed, free, best at midday when the shafts catch light.
The Gate of Beating, where sentences were once carried out at the kasbah's edge. The curtain walls mix Merinid stonework with Portuguese and English bastions from the 1471–1684 occupations, patched with cannon embrasures facing Spain.
The Bastion of the Ostrich guards the medina's highest angle, with English-era gun platforms rebuilt by Moulay Ismail's masons. Cannon barrels still point across the water toward Tarifa and Gibraltar.
Beyond the museum's main galleries, the research library holds the 1786 Moroccan-American Treaty of Friendship documents and WWII papers from the Tangier station, plus the Interzone map room. Open Monday–Friday 10:00–17:00.
Anglican church consecrated 1905 on land granted by Sultan Moulay Hassan, its chancel carved with Quranic script in Arabic. The graveyard holds Walter Harris of The Times and Emily Keene, Shereefa of Wazan.
The 1938 art deco cinema anchored the International Zone's film culture and now runs the Cinémathèque de Tanger archive. The square is named for Mohammed V's 1947 independence speech delivered nearby at Mendoubia.
Built in 1880 for European diplomats, it housed Matisse in 1912 — room 35, where he painted Window at Tangier, is preserved with the original view over St Andrew's. Reopened as a hotel in 2014 after decades derelict.
A 1st–3rd century AD garum factory and villa 15 km southwest near Cap Spartel, with salting vats, olive press and a small temple. Excavated in the 1930s, unfenced, no ticket office; grand taxi from Tangier runs about 200 MAD return.
Café Tingis and Café Central on this small square were the listening posts of the 1923–1956 International Zone, where Burroughs wrote parts of Naked Lunch and currency smugglers traded openly on the pavement.
Moshe Nahon Synagogue, built 1878 in the mellah lanes off Rue des Synagogues, retains its carved bimah and oil lamps from a community that numbered 12,000 before the 1950s departures. Small donation for the keeper.
The former residence of the Mendoub, the sultan's representative to the International Zone, where Mohammed V made his April 1947 call for independence. Bronze plaques record the speech; the dragon tree is said to be 800 years old.