Petit Poucet Bar Casablanca

Dive gin mill and hangout of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Bars with a little local color are far and few in between in Casablanca and on the evening of January 1st we checked out this die hard relic of 1920's France.

Saint-Exupery became one of the pioneers of international postal flight in the days when aircraft had few instruments and pilots flew by instinct. Later he complained that those who flew the more advanced aircraft were more like accountants than pilots. He worked on the Aeropostale between Toulouse and Dakar. In 1928, he published his first book, Courrier-Sud (Southern Mail), and flew the Casablanca/Dakar route. He became the director of Cap Juby airfield in Rio de Oro, Sahara. In 1929, Saint-Exupéry moved to South America, where he was appointed director of the Aeroposta Argentina Company.

In his most famous book, the Little Prince, a illustrated tale in which he imagines himself stranded in the desert where he meets The Little Prince, a young boy from a tiny asteriod. This was no doubt dreamed up after a few to many Espescial beers at his favorite estabishment.

During WWII, he initially flew in the French GC II/33 reconnaissance squadron. He took off the night of July 31, 1944, and was never seen again. On April 7, 2004, officials confirmed that the twisted wreckage of a Lockheed F-5 Lightning, found on the seabed off the coast of Marseille in 2000, is Saint-Exupéry's.

In Lyon, France the Saint-Exupéry International Airport is named after the aviation pioneer & author.