Here’s looking at you, kid. I mean, Your Majesty.

In the real Casablanca — not the acclaimed, 1942 Oscar-winning movie — I soaked like a queen in a rose-petal-strewn warm bath at the art deco, glamorous Royal Mansour hotel owned by, ahem … Morocco’s King Mohammed VI.

Earlier, in my same regal suite, I nobly nibbled a gratis, inches-tall, M-shaped chocolate (etched with “Royal Mansour”) and watched apricot skies envelope a distant, iconic mosque. The interior of the 24-story hotel opulently shone with 70 kinds of polished marble, and the air (along with everything from complimentary SPF 15 hand cream to provided pashmina shawls) wafted the signature Royal Mansour scent: fleur d’oranger, the favorite of another monarch, Louis XIV.

However, the five-star haven was not stuck up at all. From the general manger to the multiple uniformed doormen (the bellhop looked fab in a retro, cherry-red outfit), everyone invariably touched one hand to their chest as a cultural goodwill gesture while brightly smiling and greeting guests by name. Every time I alighted from the hotel’s chauffeured, electric Mercedes-Benz to a welcoming chorus, I felt like I was entering a super-classy “Cheers,” although this hangout had 600 Bohemian crystal fish twirling from the vaulted ceiling of the gilded lobby.

My stay was just the first aristocratic accommodation. After Casablanca, I traveled by train to the coast of this Islamic North African nation and the Royal Mansour Tamuda Bay, also owned by Morocco’s crowned head and right next door to his guarded, expansive summer digs. From my beachfront resort, I’d set off to explore the twisted alleys of two historic medinas, including the UNESCO-listed Tetouan, where tunic-cloaked shoppers perused mounds of produce and butchers slit live chickens’ throats.

Starring in Casablanca

With the stated aim of boosting tourism, Morocco’s 61-year-old sovereign opened both of my zellige-tiled Royal Mansour lodgings last year. The billionaire lords over a vast personal business empire, but his only other hotel, the exquisite Royal Mansour Marrakech, debuted back in 2010. (FYI, “mansour” means “victorious” in Arabic.) As for the country, King Mohammed VI governs alongside an elected parliament but wields enormous power.

“He is known as the ‘King of the Poor,’” my Casablanca guide Naima Boussaid explained. “He does a lot for education and single mothers and helping the underprivileged, so people love him.”

Naima, a dynamo Muslim mom of two adult daughters, wore lime green high-top Converse sneakers (“I have all the colors”); a lime-green hijab scarf over her hair; a red baseball cap emblazoned “Morocco”; a rainbow-toned, hooded, long djellaba garment; and a hefty Hand of Fatima silver pendant “that protects against the evil eye.” We strolled through the gargantuan, ornate Hassan II Mosque, erected by the king’s father and completed in 1993. “Three daily shifts each of 5,000 artisans spent six years round the clock working on it,” Naima said with awe. The 60-story minaret (second tallest in the world) is topped by a laser that beams 18 miles over the Atlantic toward Mecca and assists ships in the dark.

Before day’s end, Naima had given me her secret tagine stew recipe, brought me to buy the Moroccan 35-spice blend ras el hanout, and dramatically pantomimed over her clothes how I should vigorously scrub myself in a hammam with gooey black soap. Plus, in the newer, whitewashed medina, she complimented a stranger in Arabic, and in a snap he had invited us into his traditional family home to sit among customary piles of beautiful pillows covered in vibrant textiles. (Moroccans are extremely hospitable.)

“You know the No. 1 reason why people know Casablanca?” Naima later asked, referring to Morocco’s frenetic financial capital. “The movie. Although it was all filmed in Hollywood.” She chuckled. (“Casablanca” was entirely shot on a Warner Bros. backlot in Burbank, except for one scene filmed at nearby Van Nuys Airport).

Of course, in the city Casablanca, I had to visit Rick’s Cafe, founded in 2004 by an American woman who retired as a counselor for the U.S. Embassy in Morocco and adored the Humphrey Bogart-Ingrid Bergman romantic drama. When I walked up to Rick’s one early afternoon, a stern, suited doorman wearing blue, mirrored sunglasses conferred with someone through his two-way earpiece radio before I was led to an upstairs alcove of the restaurant. In this cozy room, the black-and-white “Casablanca” played on a screen, a vintage roulette table took center stage, and nostalgic Bogie and Bergman posters adorned the walls. I had it all to myself — including the only three bar stools — until a congenial waiter in a red fez hat materialized to take my chardonnay order.

(Note that drinking alcohol is forbidden in Islam so only certain licensed establishments can serve booze, mainly hotels and tourist restaurants.)

The Royal Mansour offers various excursions, should you tire of cocooning in the hotel spa swaddled in “red gold” saffron harvested from Moroccan hinterlands or being hypnotized by the lobby’s aquarium-terrarium housing over 1,000 darting fish from the Amazon and Asia. (Surprisingly, room rates aren’t a king’s ransom — they start at $590 and include a full breakfast with round pats of butter embellished with the Royal Mansour’s

“M” logo, which also resembles a crenellated casbah gate.)

Besides arranging my tour with Naima, the concierge set up an outing with a very cool, dreadlocked, nonprofit rep to admire more than 30 vivid street art murals throughout the metropolis. If you hear both French and Arabic spoken, that’s because Mohammed V, the king’s monarch grandfather, successfully fought to achieve Morocco’s independence in 1956 after it had been a protectorate of France for over 40 years. Incidentally, Mohammed VI — who holds a doctorate in law and ascended to the throne in 1999 — was the first Moroccan ruler to present his princess wife to the public and, in addition, tout her charitable activities. The couple have two grown children and divorced in 2018.

That evening I fell under the spell of Royal Mansour’s piece de resistance — the 23rd-floor, tantalizing, Mediterranean restaurant Le Rooftop, where on the wrap-around panoramic outdoor deck I savored asparagus-mushroom-black truffle polenta while feasting on a blazing neon sunset transforming the sprawling, legendary “White City” below. Meanwhile, in the ground-level, 1950s-chic cocktail lounge, a bartender crafted chunky, Royal Mansour M-shaped ice cubes to put in nightcaps.

Of all the gin joints, in all the towns … .

Transported in Tamuda Bay

In the buzzing, ancient medina in Tetouan, donkey carts squeezed through tangled alleys crowded with indigenous Berber women selling palm leaf-wrapped Jben cheese, fishmongers hawking slippery sardines, and squawking chickens crammed into cages. Locals selected their feathery dinner, then its throat was slit and body plucked clean. “They don’t get fresher than that,” commented my guide, Nuri Abdelkhalek. Indeed, the walled city, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is most authentic.

Back at Royal Mansour Tamuda Bay, guests preferred grazing on beluga sturgeon caviar and amlou pastries designed like flowers and encrusted with edible gold. After all, we were on the Moroccan Riviera.

To get to this north coast from Casablanca, I journeyed two hours on a high-speed train to Tangier, situated on the Strait of Gibraltar. My interesting seatmate told me he was a prayer-leading imam at a mosque in Saudi Arabia’s Mecca, and for half the trip he politely tried to convert me to Islam. Although unsuccessful, he later WhatsApped me 710 pages of the Quran.

A Royal Mansour driver met me at the Tangier station and after a 90-minute ride, I glided into the Tamuda Bay lobby only to be shell-shocked. The patterned walls were concocted of 95,000 seashells, supposedly all handpicked from the shore in front. I wondered about the origin claim, but then outside I discovered the private, half-mile stretch of beach literally blanketed, actually layered, with shells washed up from the sapphire Alboran Sea. Employees raked areas clean to make walking easier. (Continuing the marine theme, the pool bar, lamps and artwork are made of shells.)

The revered king, whose portrait graces the main foyer, has long vacationed in his security-patrolled compound next door. I’m told his VIP friends and extended family have bunked at the Royal Mansour, which sits on 25 lush acres and consists of individual, low-key, tan, blocky buildings, with 55 superb contemporary suites and villas, three restaurants helmed by Michelin-star chefs and an elaborate network of underground tunnels for personnel, such as butlers, to scurry through. (Rooms with breakfast included start at $682. If you want to splurge, book the hotel’s 18,000-square-foot Royal Villa, complete with white Steinway baby grand piano and movie theater. Just $27,000 a night.)

“We always see the king jet-skiing and sailing his black boat,” said local hiking enthusiast Zaid Habssaid, who accompanied me on a jaunt in the nearby mountains. Zaid was referring to Baldi 1, the king’s $100 million, 230-foot yacht.

I’d been to Morocco twice before but never to this area, generally off the foreign tourist map. The Andalusian-inspired labyrinth maze of Tetouan, just 20 minutes from Tamuda Bay, was a refuge for Jews and Muslims who fled the Spanish Inquisition in the 15th century. My hotel-provided guide, Nuri, said the mellah quarters that once shielded thousands of Sephardic Jews is now home to just several Jewish families, who reside among Muslim neighbors.

At one point, Nuri stopped at a placard denoting a communal oven built in the 19th century for Jews to bake bread or matzo. Inside the building, the friendly Muslim owner roasted nuts to sell and insisted on giving me a handful of warm cashews. Down another narrow corridor, shopkeeper Barrack Abderazeke beckoned: “Come in. We love everyone. We are one big family.” Then, unsolicited, one by one, he unfurled 15 oversize, colorful, Moroccan Berber carpets, some woven from camel hair.

Another day, Nuri escorted me around Tangier — to the meeting point of the Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea, past Africa’s first pet cemetery and on to Tangier’s centuries-old, energizing medina and its casbah fortress. Behind stone ramparts, souk merchants touted items from argan oil to beldi olives to bejeweled caftans.

Returning to the Royal Mansour Tamuda Bay, I again soaked like a queen. Only this night, I was alone in the hotel’s calming, dimly lit, celestial, indoor “quiet pool.” A massive, hanging, moon-mimicking sphere subtly glowed overhead, and somehow sparkly stars reflected on surface waters all around me, submerging my body in a magical galaxy.

This was my kingdom — for now.