Sablettes Beach is the main public beach in Mohammedia, the Atlantic port city halfway between Rabat and Casablanca, and it is the one people mean when they say they are going to the beach for the afternoon.
Around 1.5 km of open sand, a corniche behind it with cafés that fill up long before anyone gets in the water, and enough room that even in August you can walk a few minutes and find a quieter stretch. Worth clearing up early: the same name is also attached to a residential development inland near Mansouria, which is a different place entirely and nowhere near the sand.
For anyone staying in the capital, this is the easiest beach day on offer. Around 60 km, trains every half hour in both directions, and you are back in Rabat in time for dinner. Guests at STORY Rabat ask about it constantly, usually on their second morning here, so here is what the trip actually looks like.
What is Sablettes Beach, and why do people go there?
Sablettes Beach is the most visited stretch of sand in Mohammedia, and the reason is straightforward. The sand is fine and the bay is broad, while the waves stay strong enough to be fun without being genuinely dangerous, as Le360 put it in its national beach reporting series.
Families make up most of the crowd, and that shapes the atmosphere more than anything else. Roving vendors work the sand all day, camel and pony rides run along the waterline, and both police and Protection Civile teams stay visible from morning until the light goes.
What you will not find is a resort strip. This is a working Moroccan city beach used mainly by locals and day trippers from Casablanca, and the honesty of that is part of the appeal.
Where exactly is Sablettes Beach in Mohammedia?
Sablettes Beach lies on Mohammedia’s eastern flank, roughly four kilometres from the city’s university faculties and immediately west of the Pont Blondin headland. Older residents still call it the spot where the Oued Nfifikh once met the sea.
Here is the practical detail that most guides skip. Sablettes is not the beach you can stroll to from Mohammedia railway station, which stands on Boulevard Hassan II in the city centre. That short walk gets you to the central beach and the port area instead, so plan a petit taxi for the last few kilometres east.
Mohammedia’s coast strings together a run of named beaches, and knowing the order helps you avoid landing at the wrong one. Working east from the centre you pass Plage Centrale, Yasmina, Santa Monica, La Siesta and Mannesmann before Sablettes, with Les Mimosas beyond it.
What does the beach itself actually look like?
Expect fine, pale sand and a broad bay, with rocky outcrops at either end where local anglers fish with hand lines. At low tide the flat section between those rocks opens up considerably, which is when the football matches start.
The swell here is Atlantic rather than Mediterranean, so there is almost always some surf running. On calm summer mornings it breaks gently in knee-to-waist depth, though afternoon wind can push it up fast. Bring that expectation and the beach will not disappoint you.
How do you get to Sablettes Beach from Rabat?
Take the train. ONCF runs from Rabat to Mohammedia takes roughly 45 to 60 minutes depending on the service. Driving is about the same on a clear day, though the train wins outright at weekends when the motorway backs up.
Add a short taxi hop at the Mohammedia end and the whole day trip from Rabat stays comfortably inside a modest transport budget.
By train from Rabat Ville or Rabat Agdal
Both Rabat Ville and Rabat Agdal work as departure points, with Agdal usually easier if you are staying south of the medina. ONCF runs frequent shuttle services on this corridor plus longer distance Al Atlas trains, and Mohammedia, the nearest station to Sablettes Beach, is a scheduled stop on the way to Casablanca.
Fares move, so check the live timetable before you travel. For a sense of scale, a Casablanca family of four interviewed by Le360 on this beach put their total return transport at 120 dirhams for the day, or 30 dirhams a head. Your leg from Rabat is longer, so scale up from there rather than down.
By car on the A3 motorway
The drive covers roughly 60 km on the Casablanca to Rabat motorway, signposted A3. Take the Mohammedia Est interchange rather than Centre or Ouest, since Sablettes Beach sits on the eastern side of town. From that exit it is a short run east along the coast road.
Tolls are modest. ADM’s published tariff grid prices the full Casablanca to Rabat run at 23 dirhams for a class 1 car, with the Casablanca to Mohammedia Est section at 11. That puts the Rabat side of the journey at roughly 12 dirhams each way.
Timing matters more than distance here. Friday afternoons and the Sunday evening return into Rabat both crawl, and a 50-minute drive can stretch past 80 without much warning.
Where to park near the beach
Parking at Sablettes Beach Mohammedia is street parking, plain and simple, spread along the access roads and the seafront strip. There is no barrier-controlled car park, and in July and August the usable spaces fill by late morning.
You will be met by a gardien de voiture, the informal attendant who guides you into a space and watches the car. Two to five dirhams is the normal rate across Morocco, rising to around ten for a long day or a busy tourist spot. Carry coins, because nobody carries change.
When is the best time to visit Sablettes Beach?
Late August through October, without much competition. The Atlantic here warms slowly and cools slowly, which means the sea peaks weeks after the air temperature does.
Which months are actually good for swimming?
June through October, with August and September the warmest. Average sea temperature at Mohammedia runs as follows, based on multi-year NOAA satellite records compiled by Global Sea Temperatures:
| Month | Average sea temperature |
| June | 21.8 °C |
| July | 22.7 °C |
| August | 23.3 °C |
| September | 23.1 °C |
| October | 22.4 °C |
| February (coldest) | 17.0 °C |
October is the month most visitors overlook. The water is still warmer than it was in June, the crowds have gone, and Mohammedia’s August air average of around 26 °C has settled into something far better for walking.
Winter is a different proposition. From January to April the sea sits between 17 and 18.4 °C, which is wetsuit surfing weather rather than swimming weather.
Which day and hour to avoid the crowds
Arrive before 11 a.m. or after 5 p.m, and skip summer weekends entirely if you can. The gap between a Tuesday and a Saturday at Sablettes Beach in August is not subtle, and pretending otherwise would do you no favours.
Weekdays stay calm enough to find space anywhere on the sand. Summer weekends bring a genuine local crowd, mostly families from Mohammedia and Casablanca, and the good spots are taken by midday. Late afternoon is the sweet spot, when the heat drops and the football games start.
Is the water at Sablettes Beach clean enough for swimming?
Broadly yes, with one caveat the official data is clear about. Morocco’s national monitoring programme rates the overwhelming majority of the country’s bathing water as compliant, but Mohammedia is flagged as partially affected by pollution, so check the current rating before you swim.
What Morocco’s official bathing water monitoring says
Morocco’s Ministry of Energy Transition and Sustainable Development runs the Programme national de surveillance de la qualité des eaux de baignade et du sable des plages, and Sablettes Beach falls inside it. Classification follows the Moroccan standard NM 03.7.199 and draws on four consecutive years of microbiological sampling rather than one season’s results.
The 2026 national report, presented in Rabat on 31 March 2026, covered 204 beaches and 498 sampling stations, up from 79 beaches in 2004. As Médias24 reported, more than 95% of Moroccan bathing water met the microbiological standard in 2025, a seven-point improvement on 2021.
Now the detail that matters if you are swimming here. Of the 466 stations with enough samples to classify, 444 came back compliant, and the report names only three beaches as partially impacted by pollution: Tanger municipale, Oued Merzeg near Casablanca, and Mohammedia.
Those three account for 1.29% of classified stations, according to Aujourd’hui le Maroc’s breakdown of the report. Mohammedia stays off the separate list of eight beaches ruled non compliant, which is a meaningful difference worth holding onto.
We suggest checking the ministry’s iPlages app for the current station rating before you get in, particularly after heavy rain.
What to realistically expect on the sand
Monday mornings after a hot weekend show Sablettes Beach at its worst, and no amount of municipal cleaning gets ahead of that volume of visitors. Come midweek instead and the difference jumps out immediately.
The industrial backdrop is also real. The port and the former SAMIR refinery site sit west along the coast and stay visible from parts of the shoreline, which is simply what a beach in a port city looks like.
Litter is a national issue rather than a local one, and no Mohammedia beach escapes it. Plastic accounted for 86.9% of all waste collected on monitored Moroccan beaches in 2025, though the national median volume has dropped by roughly 25% since 2021, per the same 2026 report.
What can you do at Sablettes Beach besides swimming?
Football, volleyball, beginner surfing and the seafront walk, and almost none of it costs anything. The flat low tide sand supports a permanent rotation of ball games, the surf holds up for learners, and the promenade gives you somewhere to go when you have had enough sun.
Surfing and bodyboarding
Sablettes is a sandy beach break with rocky sections at either flank, which makes it forgiving for anyone learning to stand up. Surf forecast sites list it as working on west and north swells across most tide states.
Set your expectations properly though. Winter is the real season here and summer waves are small and busy, so treat this as a place to practise rather than a destination in the Taghazout sense.
The corniche walk and beach sports
Mohammedia’s seafront fills up in the late afternoon, and that is when most of the local activity happens. Volleyball nets go up on the drier sand, and families walk the promenade until well after dark.
Camel and pony rides operate through the summer months, which children reliably find more interesting than the sea. Golfers have an option too, since Royal Golf Anfa Mohammedia has run an 18-hole, par-72 course on 27 hectares of Atlantic frontage since 1925.
Where to eat nearby
Three places near Sablettes Beach verifiably exist and are worth naming, along with what each actually delivers:
- Relais de Paris Zimer Beach, Pont Blondin, Plage Tilal. The closest sit-down option to the beach, French menu, with pool and lounger access at 120 dirhams per person on weekdays. Reviews run mixed at 3.1 out of 5 across 93 TripAdvisor ratings, so go for the terrace and the view rather than a culinary event.
- Restaurant du Port, near the fishing harbour. Fish and seafood under the same family for around three decades, and the fish soup is what regulars order.
- La Frégate, Rue Oued Zem. Fried fish and simple seafood in town, small and unpretentious, rated 3.5 out of 5 from a thin sample of 18 reviews.
What should you know before you go?
Bring more than you think you need, and read the room. Sablettes Beach has no infrastructure to bail you out if you forget something, and it runs on local social rules rather than resort ones.
What to bring
- Small notes and coins. Parking attendants, vendors and parasol renters all deal in cash, and → nobody can break a 200-dirham note.
- Your own shade. Parasol rental on Moroccan beaches typically runs 30 to 50 dirhams a day, and prices climb on August weekends.
- Shoes you can walk on rock in. The outcrops at either end reward exploring and are hard on bare feet.
- Water and food. Vendors are everywhere, but choice is limited and prices creep up as the day goes on.
Did you know that no operator legally has the right to charge you for sitting on the sand at Sablettes Beach? Moroccan beaches fall within the public maritime domain, and free access is the governing principle, whatever the parasol rows suggest.
Dress code and etiquette
Swimwear is completely normal on any Mohammedia beach, and nobody will look twice at swim shorts or a one-piece swimsuit. That said, this is a neighbourhood city beach rather than a hotel pool, and what you see reflects that: bikinis next to women swimming fully clothed, all of it unremarkable.
A couple of practical notes. Topless sunbathing is not done anywhere on this coast, and throwing on a shirt or a kaftan for the walk to a café or taxi is the normal courtesy. Follow that and you will blend in without thinking about it.
Should you stay in Mohammedia or in Rabat?
Base yourself in Rabat and treat Sablettes Beach as a day out. Mohammedia is a pleasant town with a good beach, but it is a place you visit rather than a place that fills a trip.
Why most travellers base themselves in Rabat
Rabat gives you the medina, the Kasbah des Oudayas, the Roman and Merinid ruins at Chellah, a serious restaurant scene, and trains to Mohammedia and Casablanca in both directions all day. It also has Rabat-Salé airport for arrivals and departures, which Mohammedia does not.
Compare that to a single evening in Mohammedia once the beach empties out and the answer becomes fairly obvious. Bouznika, Témara and Skhirat all sit within the same radius, so a Rabat base keeps every one of the beaches near Rabat in reach without changing hotels.
If you want that base in the quieter embassy district with the medina and the train stations both close by, STORY Rabat sits in Quartier les Ambassadeurs and puts the whole coast within an hour.
So, Is It Worth Leaving Rabat For?
Now that you know when the water is warmest, which exit to take off the A3 and what the Protection Civile actually covers, the day mostly plans itself. Go midweek if you can, aim for a morning before eleven or the stretch after five, and carry coins for the parking attendant and the parasol. October is the month worth stealing from the calendar, when the sea is still holding 22 °C and the sand belongs to whoever bothered to show up. Bring shade, bring shoes for the rocks, and skip the beach entirely on a Sunday afternoon in August unless crowds are the point.
The rest is just logistics, and Rabat handles those better than anywhere else on this coast. Trains run in both directions all day, the medina and Chellah are waiting when you get back, and Bouznika and Skhirat sit within the same hour if one beach day turns into three. Book your stay, pick a Tuesday, and let Sablettes Beach be the easy afternoon it was always meant to be.
