Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Africa » Morocco
April 24th 2012

Published: April 26th 2012

Gibraltar is an anomaly. Geographically it’s in Spain, and they’d really like it back, but for now it’s British - from the pics you can see even the weather is British – I imagine an isolated cold front hovering over it permanently while the sun blazes over the rest of Spain. We went there with Pat and Ann, who you met in the last blog, (thanks again for the tour guys!) and who rel... Read Full Entry

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Hilary Falconer

flying kiwis

The Kiwis are off on their next adventure to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary! First a tour of Slovenia and Croatia then independant travel around southern Italy and Sicily. Then HIS choice of romantic settings - a road trip round Iceland. And of course no flying Kiwis trip would be complete without a sojourn in England including our favourite city - London.... full info

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Semana Santa

another evening procession - fascinating

Morocco Bound

FINALLY on our way to Morocco by ferry - Gibraltar is a brooding presence over the Straits

Gnoua musicians

greeting us at the Chellah Gardens in Rabat

Roman ruins at Chellah

1st C Roman settlement, remains destroyed by the Lisbon earthquake of 1755

Berber ruins in Rabat

12th C Berber Kasbah in the Chellah gardens - note the nesting storks

Chellah

inside the Berber ruins

Chellah

layers of civilization - Roman, Berber, Muslem

Rabat

gateway to the medina (Islamic walled city)

Rabat medina

beautiful blue comes from Indigo - used for both buildings and clothing by the Berbers to repel mosquitoes

Meknes mosque

Cerara marble pillars are Roman - 1kg of marble was traded for 1kg of sugar! Colours for painted plaster comes from mint, indigo, saffron and paprika

Snake charmer

in the Meknes market. He wasn't very charming - but spotted the Aussies on our tour and had them up holding the snakes!

Meknes market

we didn't stand out as tourists or anything!

Fes (Fez) Medina

9th C part has 9,000 alleyways covering 300 hectares + 1 million people living there. The 'new' medina is 14th C and the largest medieval walled city

The tile factory

cutting tiles for the exquisite mosaics still used for mosques, houses, furniture and fountains

Pottery at the tile factory

All natural dyes used including cobalt, copper, yellow ochre, iron oxide, turmeric, paprika and mint

In the medina

aMAZEing - it's a wonder none of us got lost. Fascinating and overwhelming

The jeans guy

not sure what he was doing but it was messy and smelly

Medina University

Koranic university in the heart of the old Fes medina - in amongst the filth and mahem there are sudden oases of peace and beauty

medina donkey

the only way to get around or transport goods through 9,000 narrow alleyways...ballack...ballack!!...donkey coming through!

Even in a 9th C medina...

you need to get good reception...

The Fes tannery

the smell is so bad they hand out bunches of mint to help the poor tourists from gagging...and we only see it from a distance...

13th May 2012

Dancing Dave
David Hooper

GREAT SHOT
Captures the scene...dry as hell...yet inhabited!

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