If Rabat is the consular, administrative, slightly polished side of the Bou Regreg, Salé is the older and more conservative sister across the river. Its medina is a different proposition from the capital's: smaller, tighter, almost exclusively local, and still carrying much of its pre-industrial character intact. The walled old city is anchored by the 12th-century Great Mosque and the small Merinid Medersa Abu al-Hassan at its centre, with working souks for everyday goods, several ziaras (saints' tombs), and the old kasbah walls reaching the Atlantic at Borj Adoumoue on the northwest tip.

The shop economy here is oriented to locals — bread, fruit, hardware, household goods, cheap clothes — rather than to the tourist trade that shapes Rue des Consuls across the river. Expect curious glances rather than persistent touts. Standard city-centre awareness applies, but Salé is not a place where you have to keep one hand on your phone. Modest dress is more important than in Rabat, especially around the Great Mosque: cover shoulders and knees, and women should expect that even a light scarf draped over the shoulders reads as a courtesy.

Two ways across from Rabat. The Rabat–Salé tram (line 2) crosses the Hassan II Bridge in about ten minutes, air-conditioned and fast, dropping you near the medina's eastern edge. The traditional rowboat ferry runs continuously under the Kasbah of the Udayas walls below — slower, three minutes across, around 3 MAD per person, and atmospheric. Take the tram one way and the rowboat the other if you have time. Mid-morning on a weekday gives the souks at full activity; Friday around midday quietens for the main prayer; late afternoon works for a walk out to Borj Adoumoue and the Atlantic for sunset.