Day 5 - This was going to be another day with too many hours in the jeep, but we had been told that Marrakech to Essaouira (which means "beautiful picture", and is the modern name for Mogador) would be about 2.5 hours, and completely straight with no twists and turns and no ups and downs. In fact, that was correct, and we didn't really suffer on the way, except for my poor husband, who really got bad food poisoning the previous night. We got off on the left foot, as I received a phone call at 8:00 in the morning. Who [View Full Entry]

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Day 4 - it was Saturday, so a "day of rest" for us. But with the Souks so close by, we had a great time wandering around, knowing that we couldn't buy anything (see explanation on day3). We had bought tickets to the Marrakech Museum and the Medersa on Friday, so we spent the morning visiting these very interesting places. Definitely not to be missed. Back to Mrs. Peretz for lunch, and then another walk around the Jemma El Fna, this time during the day. There were a few snake-charmers around, but not so many - maybe because it was November, [View Full Entry]

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It's taken me much too long to get back to writing up this blog of Marrakech, but I'm here now, so off we go. Day 1: Tel Aviv -> Barcelona -> Marrakech I'll start with our first mistake - flying Iberia. We actually had a really cool route of Tel Aviv -> Barcelona -> Marrakech and back the same way. We chose Iberia because they had short connections, we could send our luggage all the way through, and we got BA miles :-) BUT ... two weeks before we left, Iberia called and said that the Barcelona -> Marrakech flight was [View Full Entry]

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Day 2 - Jeep trip from Marrakech to the Tizi-N-Tichka pass, Telouet, Ait Benhaddou, Ouarzazate, and back .... Off we went on our jeep trip into the Atlas mountains. We discovered quite early on that sitting in the back of a 7-seater jeep, travelling at 80 kph, is not a huge lot of fun, so we had quite a lot of stops for changing places, and for getting rid of our breakfast, snack, lunch, etc. .... As I say, this trip is not for the faint-hearted. The views are amazing, and if you are into narrow trails on the edge of [View Full Entry]

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Day 3 - and we had planned to go to the souk for just a couple of hours, HA HA HA. So, we started off a bit later than planned, since we were just dead from the previous day. Two of our party wanted to buy leather jackets, so our first stop was a leather goods factory about 1 minute walk from our Riad. As I've said before, there was 6 of us, and we ordered 11 items of clothing - mostly jackets and skirts !!! Now, it was Friday 11:00 when we finally left the factory, they don't work on [View Full Entry]

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Day 6 - today we were supposed to have a whole day in Marrakech, leaving the hotel at around 17:00, to catch our flight out at 19:10. But, as I told you on day 5 - Iberia screwed us again, and we had to leave our hotel at 12:00, so basically the whole day was shot. We wanted to make the best of it anyway, and enjoy the atmosphere and smells till the last second. So, we made an early start, to see the sights that we had not seen on Friday (remember? we went into the Souks and almost never [View Full Entry]

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So, off we go (my husband and myself), on our umpteenth short trip. We have 3 children, aged 15, 14 and 6, so our dream of a round-the-world trip is on hold for a few years. But, thanks to our amazing child-carer, we can take short trips of 4-6 days a few times a year. For me, this is also the beginning of a new life, since I leave my job of 11 years tomorrow, then go home, pack, and drive to the airport :-) Anyway, with so many changes going on at the same time, I decided it was about [View Full Entry]

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