Fez

Great trip in taxi to Fez. Took longer to find the place once in the city than the 50km drive - or so it seemed! And that was with th taxi driver asking directions!

As we keep getting told, this is the real Morocco. We had our best accommodation of the trip here, but probably also the most full on and unsettling experiences.

Had a great tour with a guide - through amazing mazes of alleyways etc. the guide tried his hardest to get us out for longer than 3 hours. 3 hours was dh150 anything over was 250. David had to keep him on time coming back so that it was within the 3 hours - bit of a pain but that’s the game played here. Worth the guide though as it would have been hard finding all the places - mosques, tannery and gates in walls.

The tannery was interesting, traditional operation and smelly - crushed mint helped a lot.

Had one funny incident when we sat down for drinks - the guy moved the umbrella to cover Kim fully from the sun and went about getting bread and dips for us thinking that we were eating there. When we said no food he moved the umbrella again so that some sun was on Kim and then took ages to come back for our drinks order.


Yet more fabulous food for our 2 nights in the riad. Just yummy and good company too - a communal meal -1st night there were American and Canadian and English guests and the 2nd a writer for lonely planet, a political journalist and crew filming a documentary on craftwork here. The hosts were lovely, basically leave the guests to have tea together and then join in after tea with drinks and sharing conversation but always in the background letting guests drive the conversation. Quite a unique and lovely concept.

Kim left us here, been lovely having and will miss her and her cheeky comments. -

Still feel totally bamboozled by Fez and the maps and streets.

Volubilis & Moulay Idriss

From Meknes, a day trip to Volubilis, once a corner of the Roman empire (photo) and Moulay Idriss, (white village - photo) a thousand year old pilgrimage centre.

Volubilis city ruins - amazing. Mosaic tiles in tact were astonishing - they must have been something amazing in their day when not faded or dirty. Really hot wandering around here but great to be away from the city too. I had a moments briefish panic when I couldn’t see David or Kim for over 10-15 minutes. Actually I couldn’t see anyone and while that was nice for a change I did feel a little unsettled. However, reunited and continued our exploration - I was able to direct them to some mosaics that they had missed.

Moulay Idriss wass quite a special place too. More narrow lanes and alleyways. We found the viewing point and the restaurant sign but no obvious restaurant door or entrance- tried a couple of doors under the sign that were private homes - poor people, sorry for the invasion but you can’t tell here otherwise.

Great 1/2 day out.

Meknes

One of the old imperial capitals, not all that touristed at the moment. Fantastic place to stay at, got hopelessly lost in the medina and continued to eat well. Great, great salads in particular at one place we found.

David is surprised at how such gorgeous buildings, restaurants and food seem to come out of very humble, and very hidden, corners. You duck down some dark and dingy alley, turn some corners and duck down a few more, and you find some hole in the wall door, with a little sign over it with the name of the place you’re trying to find. Go through the door and you are in another world completely - gardens, fountains, peace and quiet, beautiful arches, ceramics, carvings and on it goes. You’d have no idea at all from the street that it was anything.
Did the usual tourist thing round Meknes without getting too seriously lost. All good.…..
The walk down to the old grainery storage area and the palace - that was not open at any entrance we could see/find was down a long street walled on each side with high walls. Quite something to see. The grain store was pretty amazing too with high ceilings and delightfully cool after the hat of the day.

Tried to follow instructions from 2 guide books to a restaurant, what a mission - had a little help on the way. I was a little reluctant to keep going but David and Kim persisted and boy it was worth it - what a wonderful meal in a cool place! that was. Kim and I decided just to have salad and David had a tajine. Well the salad was a selection of about 8-10 ( 2 carrot, lentil, okra, aubergine, tomato, rice, potato, ..) outstanding! So our little meal was significantly bigger than intended. David’s was very good too. No need for dessert. (Photo)

Photo also of the communal area where we stayed, ate and relaxed - a riad. Stunning place.

Rabat

Soooo…. Now in Morocco. We knew we were up for a huge day travelling by bus to Tarifa, ferry to Tangier, walking/taxi to bus/train, then 4+ hour train/bus to Rabat, then taxi t hotel, but in the end worked out very very well and the hassle we were expecting didn’t really happen.

And, of course, if we eat well, then all’s well. Our encounters with Moroccan food have been superb. The sighs of relief and pleasure from Mary were audible for kilometres. She writes: Moroccan food - YUMMY. Boy what an amazing difference to that of the Spanish. Just divine flavours!

Rabat easy to navigate and a few things to see. Photo here of Kasbah in the old town - blue walls said to keep mosquitoes away. Hmmm… Got caught by a tout - oldest trick in the book (“just want to learn some English, let me show you where to go…“ etc). Anyway all a good learning curve. We went to both the mosque and the palace I think and later to the museum of archaeology. Had the traditional refreshing mint tea at a café over looking the river and david and Kim had pastries. All very nice.

Seville

Last place we go to in Spain and we’d booked ourselves in for 6 nights so a chance to rest and recuperate from our holiday. before hitting Morocco. Sigh…

Memories of Seville? Hot nights, hot days, lots of sangria, wet pants on the bus (perspiration, we hasten to add) and discovering the joys of Spanish supermarkets with all kinds of lovely stuff, including ginormous sweet red peppers, olive salads, smoked and stuffed chicken etc. funny how travel stories tend to focus on the food, lol. We made far better salads than the restaurants!

After the other places in Spain, perhaps we were a little jaded by the architecture. Seville has a huge cathedral but perhaps not quite as spectacular as other places; there were quite a few places that looked somewhat derelict (such as the 1992 expo park and a number of other grandiose public works schemes, gardens etc). maybe a once grand city that had fallen on hard times. David was impressed that the Spanish ran South America from here, though a few hundred years ago..

.Did a walking tour to Triana - the old craft and dodgy part of the town where all the wicked flamenco dancers hung out. Not bad. Didn’t see any, although David offered a place on one of the flamenco courses (politely declined, owing to my schedule).

One night we thought we’d scored a wedding as the cathedral was closed and only those with invites of a sort were admitted. There were people of all generations and generally dressed up - - but must just have been a mass service that obviously was restricted. [David says it must have been a mass mass].

great to have Kim join us here.

Granada and general travel

Trip to Seville was by bus and, apart from us, noone seemed to think there was anything to look at! How wrong!!! Huge fields of sunflowers all in a row, facing the same way - quite amazing really. As far as your eye can see sometimes. Also even larger areas of olive trees - once again all in a row - but stretch for miles on end. Quite neat geometric patterns really.

Wind power - windmills through some areas and then large banks of solar panels in others.

Many large stretches of nothing much to see but then you go up a hill and hello there are a number of settlements with many houses painted white and shining in the sun (is this a song?) usually with an old cathedral or walls of a city and then mountains.

Found the adult form of a dummy on our last bus trip! A toothpick. Some elderly gentleman sucked on one for the whole 3 hour trip. Respect!



Travelling from Cordoba to Grenada we met an American couple about our age. He’d been in the military and flew for free from USA to anywhere in the world a military plane happened to be going. She was from Taiwan. He had a bad back and a loopy knee, so she carried both of their packs. Is this a trend? David was impressed.

Anyways Grenada was hot but cool. Main attraction is the Alhambra, which we were both very taken with. Built by the Arabic (Moroccan) Moors, it was quite a contrast to other buildings we have seen. Rather than images, lots of very intricate carved patterns on walls and ceilings; beautiful fountains and gardens, perched high on a hill inside some impressive walls. The whole thing was stunning.

Walked around Granada quite a bit as well - cool place with probably more than we gave ourselves a chance to see. Great having the mountains and snow in the background, although temperatures where we were were in the mid 30s. Lots of liquids to be consumed. Oh well…

Cordoba

An extremely long walk (wrong direction) to get to our accommodation!) - it was rather hot and food and drink was much in need. But what a really cool spot we had - courtyards or patios they would be called with stone mosaic on the ground and really nice eating areas. Sangria went down really well after our haphazard approach to the location. A short stroll around the area and then tea before bed. The alarm woke us both 7:45 - for breakie and off to the Cathedral which had been a Mosque. It was very different with an open courtyard of orange trees and red striped columns. I loved the expanse of columns and the lack of height in the ceilings as compared to other cathedrals changed to atmosphere as well - well, contributed to it. There was a mass celebrated while we were in there - heavily guarded but security on camera duty - no photos of the congregation or officiating priests. Did love that cathedral or rather mosque converted to cathedral.

Barcelona- Gaudi

Parc Guell - Gaudi’s park. It was pretty amazing with colourful mosaics everywhere and amazing views of the city as well. The mosaic curved seating at the top of one section were stunning - colours, patterns and different curves everywhere. Underneath this area was a huge pillar supported space with arched ceilings and some colourful circular sections. There were also incredible archways and areas that looked like overhanging earth supported by angled pillars.

Sagrada Familia - this was Gaudi’s final legacy, and if there was one thing that is used to represent Barcelona that would be it, but still in a state of completion and LOTS more to fix. An impressive structure, but didn’t grab us as much as David thought it would. Fastest spend of euro dollars at an attraction so far - $44 consumed in less than 45 minutes, but all for a good cause. the photo of that is the one looking up at a ceiling - not that you mayrecognise it as such!

Barcelona

The impact of the streets and buildings are slightly less than what we have experienced in the smaller and older cities that we have so far explored. Never-the-less still pretty cool. Unfortunately not all city smells appeal to my nose, many of the drains have less than pleasant smells seeping from them. Reminded me a bit of India really and not expected.

Walked many places and worked the metro - very good system with maps all over the city enabling you to re-establish your location and direction. Also many signs directing you to specific areas.

Went up the infamous Le Ramblas - an impressive sight with a large tree-ed wide street (middle pedestrian access only) Heaps of people here dressed up - street theatre it may be called. But standing in poses and hoping for contributions from the spectators. We revisited this place the next day as well.

Girona

Travel days - Avila to Girona. First it’s Avila to Madrid bus by bus and metro to the airport. That all went fine. Bit of an interesting day. Bus to Madrid was fine then our plane was delayed by 3 hours apparently by the French air traffic controllers industrial action. But the highlight had to be the last minute change of gate. We had initially been at one gate when the flight was cancelled then we had to change gate but just before the supposed boarding they changed the gate- so David went into this “the race is on” mode - along with many others. What a hoot racing from one gate to another - quite a distance apart. We did improve our place in the line - quite good with Ryanair as no seats are allocated so first on first serve. Having said that people start standing in queues ¾ hour before the flight!

As we arrived so late in Girona we didn’t really look around that much and decided to head off to Barcelona as early as possible rather than look around Girona - we were ready to settle into the next location. The train suspensions from Girona to Barcelona were a little unsettling as the bus didn’t leave until 2:30 which meant filling in 4 hours, but caught one only ¾ hour wait.

Enjoyed the musical entertainment while having tea.

Segovia - David’s favourite place so far. Has all the clichés of this part of Spain: castle high on a hill with sweeping views of everything, huge cathedral next to a main square, and lots of little narrow streets that seem to go nowhere and everywhere. Segovia also had an incredible 2000 year old Roman aqueduct.

Met some kiwis at the wall gates- one from Te Awamutu though now in Invercargill. They were on a bus tour with their 3 chn - all the time we see groups we think not for us!! But nice to see and speak some English again. Am gaining a little confidence in Spanish - very little. David is so good and I do rely on him a lot. We are just chilling out in our room and then we are going to see if I can buy some clothes - there was a nice shop that was having a liquidation sale and I liked a top in the window - so worth trying.

Photos of Cathedral, aquaduct and alcatraz, Segovia

better photo Avila