You've come for the legend: the decadent Tangier that seduced writers and inspired outrageous ex-pat parties by the likes of Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton, who used to give her underwear away in the street.

So you check into the Hotel Continental (where Bertolucci shot The Sheltering Sky) and prop up the bar, dreaming of the spies and drug smugglers who once filled the room, when a knot of safari-shorted, fanny-pack toting tourists pull up at the next table.