Monday, March 31, 2008
Seville, southern Spain
We arrived in Seville on Holy Saturday: the first thing we did in our orientation walk was to find a church for Palm Sunday Mass the next day. No problem in Catholic Spain. So after Mass the next day we walked into the Parque de Maria Luisa and on its fringes, the first of the Semana Santa parades which we waited for along with the other thousands; we then followed the procession to the Cathedral - behind and alongside the penitents and the floats, one of the Virgin and the other of a scene from the Passion of Christ. There are nine of these processions every day starting from the Parishes in and around Seville, heading toward the Cathedral and back again. (Some will take up to twelve hours.)Every day, except the last, we watched various processions amongst visits to the Cathdral,(and the tomb of Christopher Colombus), Alcazar (the old walled city and where we were lost one night in trying to make our way back to our hotel without having to negotiate thousands of prpcession watchers); the bull fighting ring at El Arenal and the Plaza de Espana. We certainly clocked up lots of walking miles here (until we learned how cheap and easily accessible the buses are) and it was in Seville that we broadened our knowledge of Spanish to include 'Cafe con Lyche' 'dos' and 'tostadas'. In this way, with a bit of pointing and smiling we were able to order 'two toasts and coffee with milk' for breakfast (cost about 8 Euros cf the 28 Euros we were having to pay for hotel breakfasts!). We thoroughly enjoyed Seville - not so much the 'flamenco' we went to see, but the ambience and warmth and smells of this orange blossomed city.
Fes to Tangier to Seville
The trip from Fes to Tangier we made by train - 2nd class seat but cheap, spacious and comfortable although we did have to share with locals. But that was fine! They didn't understand us and we didn't understand them. After a brief argument with the taxi driver who dropped us at the hotel we settled in to a luxurious night at the Rif and Spa hotel overlooking the Harbour. A quick walk around the streets to get a Tangier taste was all we could do (we arived late pm); a cheap meal and off to bed. We had a ferry to catch the next morning. So next day, up before the birds and before a hotel breakfast could be served and we walked about 600m to the ferry terminal, bound for Algeciras in southern Spain. After some confusion with ferry people and a long hike from the terminal to the ferry itself (it almost felt as though by that stage we had walked to Spain) we were allowed to board. There were about 7 passengers in all - ourselves and a Moroccan family. But it was a great trip across the Mediterranean and past the Rock of Gibraltar. We caught a 2.00pm bus to Seville and arrived after a long day at around 6.00pm. A quick walk to orient in the 17 - 18 degree temp on a brilliantly fine evening - and smell the orange blossom! The air is just full of it. Back to the hotel: through hordes of people heading to a Spanish Football League game - should we go? Would be nice but we've been up since 5.00am and we haven't eaten. Perhaps best not to. (Turned out the game was between local team Real Betis and Bilbao from the north of Spain and was called off early after a spectator through a bottle at the opposing goal keeper, hitting him on the head. What a good idea not to have paid to see this game.)
Fes, Morocco
The old town of Fes, the Medina, was like something out of an Ali Baba (more about that later) book than some of the other Medinas we have been in. There are something like 4,600 streets/alleys in the Medina and it can be very easy to get lost. So, we hire an English speaking guide: his name Ali - and he introduced himself as Ali Baba. Our first day with Ali was in our own, cool, private taxi which took us to the very rim of the ancient city from where we were able to look down on rich olive groves and a bustling Ville Nouvelle, as well as the Medina. From amongst fortress ruins and the remnants of ancient tombs we were allowed a bird's eye view of Fes and the Royal Palace. A trip into the poorer parts of Fes, where animal hides were left on the side of the road to dry in the sun and to pottery works. A photo stop to catch a herder with his flock of sheep (and the tip for the opportunity!);and in to the Palace gates (be careful who you photograph here)the Jewish quarter and in to the Medina itself. Down narrow streets with meat hanging out for sale, with spices, and clothing and more spices and clothing and more meat and food and spices etc ... We stopped for lunch at a small, traditional Moroccan 'restaurant' in the Medina (somewhere - a friend of Ali's we suspect; it was the most beautiful food we have had outside of the top restaurants. We were given a quick tour of the kitchen by the hard-case owner (ie space where food was prepared) and a taste of the foods we could eat. Whatever we tasted it was nice and then it was served to our table and kept on coming and coming and coming... and all for next to nothing. It felt almost like one of those Christmas dinners where you just want to lie down and rest afterwards. But up we got and on we went. The next day we took a ride with our taxi driver into the country ouside of Fes; to the old town of Bahlil and into the (almost) luxuriously appointed cave home of an ancient Berber family (the old woman was 84 and her husband, put outside to soak up the sun, 102) on to Sefrou, and to the monkeys (Barbary Apes?) in the hills above Ifrane and finally into Ifrane itself: a town almost Swiss like in its appearance and layout (probably because it snows up here in the Middle Atlas Mts). The next day we were back in the Medina and again with Ali (for a couple of hours anyway). To visit places we were not able to fit in on the first day: the old Caravanserai buildings, an example of an up-market Riad or hotel/lodging (the next time we come to Fes, Ali told us, we could have a room here for £60.00/night - cheap!); we went to a tannery where, because of the smell, we were given a sprig of fresh mint to hold to our noses to try and disguise the smell; we went to an old Medersa/Madrassa where children were versed in the teachings of the Koran and we walked again down various narrow streets (past a stall selling camel meat and one selling goats heads) and where Ali left us, just before lunch. We decided to find our own way out of the Medina: big mistake! We wandered in circles round and round down different alleys but could find nothing to take us back to the Blue Gate - we thought we could find our way home from there. So having found a restaurant we stopped for a delicious lunch - and asked from directions from there. Easy! So off we trekked and again became lost in the myriad of alleys that don't seem to register in peoples' consciousness. A couple of hours later we stumbled upon the Blue Gate but at least we were outside the Medina walls. We can walk from here! Big mistake. Lost again - and as a last resort we stopped a taxi. The easiest and quickest way back to the hotel and the end of our Fes experience.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Rabat: Capital City
Rabat,on the coast about 1 hour north of Casablanca, is Morocco's capital. We stayed on the fringes of the Medina just up the road from the Mausoleum of Mohammed V and the earthquake damaged remains of Le Tour Hassan. When we arrived at the Mausoleum complex in the late afternoon we were basically on our own and able to freely wander around but then the tour buses arrived: and we left! Our first full day was spent orientin: finding our way to the Medina and the Walled Kasbah on the beach front. The blue and white(wash) of the Medina was very similar to the colours of Santorini and the souks also very much the same: both places were built high on cliff tops overlooking the sea. Rabat was a great place to walk in: through the Medina (on at least two occasions and never hassled by touts), the Kasbah and the Ville Nouvelle. We walked to, through the Andalusian Gardens of the Kasbah, an unkempt but richly aromatic and cool oasis in the heat of the day. Across the city precinct and into the Archaeology Museum with no-one around to collect our 20DHS entry fee. But we went in anyway, looked around and just as we were about to leave, the custodian turned up - and we handed over our money. The next day we walked again (in the cool of the morning it had rained at night) to the Chellah, past armed guards and into the abandoned and crumbling ruins of an ancient Roman city (which later became the Necropolis of the Merenid people before they in turn left and established the city of Sale)with the aroma of orange blossom and the sight of storks nesting in abandoned high points.
Casablanca
Casablanca followed a second class train ride from Marrakech: comfortable, efficient and cheap. This is the Economic centre for Morocco and is not really geared up for tourism despite the exotic images potrayed in movies. VERY impressive was the Hassan II Mosque: a huge Mosque that in sheer size and grandeur dwarfs both St Peter's in Rome and St Paul's in London. A much more recent building, constructed between 1987 and 1993, it can accommodate 25,000 worshippers on its main floors and Mezzanine floors. With not much to see in Casa (as locals call it) we hired a guide, who introduced himself as Bill, and took us to places we could have walked to anyway, but the 2 1/2 hour trip did serve as a useful orientation exercise. Our luckiest find was probably the now disused cathedral, Cathedrale du Sacre Coeur, where for 20DHS (and a tip)we climbed what seemed like hundreds of pigeon-pooped steps to get a great view of the white city: Casablanca. This is a city where we first branched out into making market purchases, fruit and patisseries and becoming more familiar with Moroccan life. Four nights in the 1922 Hotel Transatlantique were enough: comfortable enough but with not much to do/see we were forced into go-slow which was important in terms of the number of days we still have to go.
The Morocco Mission
At the end of February we flew into Marrakech and into summer conditions (for us!) of beautifully fine days and mid-20s temperatures. We walked for seemingly forever experiencing Tangines and Brochettes of one sort or another and wonderful smells mixed at times with the distinctive smell of sewerage that is almost ubiquitously synonymous with a developing world. Marraakech impressed as a clean and tidy city from inside the Souks of the Medina to the Nouvelle Ville beyond the old city walls. The wafting warm air made early evenings quite pleasant and provided a brief barrier between the heat of the day and the cold of the night. Getting lost was just so easy. School and University French was definitely a valuable aid even though vocab and expresiions were dredged up from the depths of the grey matter. The Medina was an almost overwhelming experience, particularly when we were there in the early evenings: everyone it seems tends to gather there and the entertainment and food smells were just too enticing to ignore: it was a step outside our square to eat on the side of the square in the food stalls but it was a great place to watch the world go by. Dinner on our last night in Marrakech was spent upstairs in a cafe overlooking the Medina and the view was just awesome. But Marrakech was more than Medina and food. We tracked around the traffic riddled and sometimes very narrow streets looking for Old Palaces, Old Temples, and with the Lonely Planet as our guide,over the three days we were there we were able to tick off all our (Well, Shelley's) predetermined must sees. One of the most impressive days was the day we took a trip into the lower hills of the High Atlas to Ourika Valley where the early days of Spring were being born through snow melt in the rivers and apple blossom along the roadside villages. But also impressive were the Koutoubia (the Mosque and its Minaret just outside of Djemaa el-Fna, the Medina square),the Kasbah and the Saadian Tombs (which we were not going to let escape us despite the map reading difficulties); the Palais de la Bahia (the old and partly dismantled Royal Palace); the Musee de Marrakech (which for 20DHS we were eventually able to find - the cost of getting some direction from the side of the Souk); the Dar Si Said and its Museum of Moroccan Arts and even to the Jardin Menara where seemingly almost every Moroccan family (a bit of an exaggeration) whiled away their Sunday afternoons, the way Kiwis would do by going to the beach. Marrakech was Marvellous.
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