From Fez to Granada by rail replacement service

This was the day that everything went wrong.

The point of going on a Great Rail Journey holiday is to go by rail but the organisers screwed up and scheduled our return trip for a national holiday (Eid-al-Adha) when most/all trains were cancelled. This meant a lot of scurrying around to find a replacement coach to get us to Tangier.

Not only was the ride to Tangier uncomfortable it also meant that we were stuck on main roads with nothing much to look at.

The only "highlights" of the long ride were the two comfort stops at service stations where I was able to get coffee and chocolate. I was also able to stretch my legs a little (something that is easy to do on a train) and walk around their little gardens.

It also transpired that our boat had been cancelled and we were moved to a later one, not that we were told that until long after the decision was made. This gave us even more time to kill so we went through some suburbs of Tangier approaching the post from east. This was interesting but I would much rather have done the journey by train as planned and expected.

We left Tangier the way that we arrived there though that was not without incident either.

Having toured through the outskirts of Tangier on our way to the port we were then rushed on to the boat and only just got on in time and had to trust that our bags were there too (one cart load was mislaid between coach and boat).

The boat trip was the best part of the day but it only lasted half an hour.

I managed to secure a seat and to relax with a coffee and a beer and also to make a few trips to the observation/smoking deck to take pictures of water.

I did not notice the shape of this cloud at the time as I was more interested in disappearing shoreline. If you take enough photos then you are going to get some lucky ones like this.

Back in Spain we had another coach, this time from Tarifa to Granada, a journey of around four hours.

The one plus is that I got on the coach quickly and was able to claim one of the seats upstairs at the front. That gave me the best view on the ride, the problem was that there was nothing to look at except motorway for most of the time.

A large number of hills were covered with wind turbines and there were several different designs. I picked this picture because of the pylon structure which I had not seen before,  the supports are normally solid white pillars.

We did also get a brief glimpse of Gibraltar but it was not that interesting when seen at distance through glass when moving.

As with the Africa leg, the one point of interest was the rest stop at a service station.

I did not buy anything but I did enjoy the views of the town below making the most of the last of the day's sun.

The last leg of the journey took us through bull fighting territory and several towns marked this with large statues on prominent hills. These all looked the same to me and may well have been identical.

It was gone 7pm when we finally arrived at Granada, some 12 hours after we first boarded a coach in Fez. Even then the mishaps were not over as our coach was not allowed to stop outside of the hotel and we had to wait quite a while for a space to become available in the parking area at the end of the road.

All ambition had been drained from me by then and for my evening meal I went to a pizza restaurant next to the hotel for, er, a pizza and a beer.

It had not been a good day but we had all made it to Granada safely and in good enough condition to get back on with the exploration the next day.

Lots of history in Meknes and Volubilis

Having covered Fez in a day we were then taken to the nearby city of Meknes and to the Roman ruins at Volubilis.

I had a quick leg stretch before getting on the coach and took this picture of our hotel. The fountain in the roundabout had a twin at the other end of the boulevard that ran off to the right where the palm trees are.

It was a nice enough hotel in a nice enough setting, but it was not close to the old town and I like being close to, or in, the old town when I travel.

Our first, brief, stop was at the impressive Agdal reservoir built by Sultan Moulay Ismail in the early 18th century. This is about a third of it. It was built to serve his palace and, in particular, his large army and their horses.

The reservoir was next to the Royal Palace that was damaged by the Lisbon Earthquake of 1755 and was then abandoned.

The parts that we could see were the remains of the corn stores and stables. As with the reservoir outside, the scale and sense of history impressed.

The geometric shapes also made a big impression on me, from the large domes to the rows of arches. These were a big hit with the whole group and I have several photos with people walking in to shot at the wrong time (for me). I also had to wait my turn to stand in the best places where the most arches stood.

Inside the only light was artificial. Some of the store rooms had none and I took speculative photos with the flash just to see what was in there.

Outside the morning sun was bright and cast crisp shadows to compliment the shapes conjured from stone.

Having seen what Sultan Moulay Ismail built we then went to see where he was buried.

The work on the mausoleum started in his own lifetime, he died in 1727, and is arranged like a palace with grand rooms arranged around courtyards.

The tomb itself is in a dark room and tourists are not allowed to get close to it. From the doorway there is not much to see so the two photographs that I have chosen are from other parts of the mausoleum.

The first picture is a little pretentious, a weakness that I confess to, and while the floor is decorative it is the contrast with the plain yellow wall and the simplicity of the door that I like.

The picture below is more typical of the mausoleum and gives a fair idea of its grandeur.

Our final stop in our quick visit to Meknes was to the Bab Mansour Gate next to the mausoleum. This was also started during the life of Sultan Moulay Ismail and was completed five years after his death.

The marble columns were taken from the Roman settlement at Volubilis, which we would see later in the day.

The gate was grand but we were there at the wrong time of the day as the sun was right behind it. That is why I took close-ups but even then the effect of the very bright sky was to make the wall look dark.

The gate was on the edge of the old town and it would have been nice to have had some time to walk around, half an hour would have done. The castellated wall alone was worth a closer look but the tour was running to a pretty fixed schedule and we were whisked away to have lunch.

Our restaurant was on the hills overlooking Volubilis and we had good views of the site which was about 1km away.

Lunch was pleasant enough but, not for the first time that trip, I felt that we were spending too much time over eating when there were more interesting things that we could be doing. We had all gone to Morocco to see Morocco, not to have three course lunches.

The schedule for the day was odd for another reason. The original plan was to see Volubilis in the morning and Meknes in the afternoon but that got switched on the day by our local guide. That meant that we were in Volubilis at the hottest part of the day and, as you can see, there is next to no shade there.

We had a good guide to the site and over an hour he showed us many things that we could have missed, such as mosaics in buildings away from the centre of the site, and told us much of the history of the site.

A lot of the history is still lost. The site was also abandoned after the Lisbon earthquake and it was not until the French occupation that excavation started and so far about half the site has been uncovered.

There are few substantial bits standing, essentially just those that you can see here, yet me still managed to take an hour to see it all. I might have liked a little longer there unguided but we were not given that option.

As Roman remains go, Volubilis is a poor relative to sites like Carthage but from Fez/Meknes it was a brief detour and so it would have been perverse not to go.

After Volubilis we took the more scenic route back to Fez and were left alone for the rest of the day. For a lot of us that meant going to the reasonable looking cafe just up the road. There were lots of cafes around, as there were everywhere in Morocco, but most were very much for locals and did not have any women in them.

The few niggles that I have mentioned aside, this was a pleasant day steeped in history and beauty.

Fantastic Fez

Our day in Fez was to be busy, varied and extremely interesting. This was what I had come back to Morocco to see and do.

We started at one of the Royal Palaces, there is one in every major city.

As before there were rules to follow and we were allowed to photograph this gate but not the one off to the left with guards in front of it. They waved at me when I tried. It was a friendly wave but the intent was clear.

Deterred from the side gate I paid more attention to the main gate. It was exquisite. It was typically Moroccan, just that little bit more decorative, which is what you would expect from a Royal Palace. It was a beautiful start to the day.

Next we went up to the South Fort just outside the city. There was not that much to the fort itself but going to the top of the little hill that it sat on gave some great views across the medina. I spent ages looking at the city and could have spent much longer.There is something about rooftops that get me at there were lots of them here.

The sandy colour of the city gave it a pleasing uniformity and also contrasted it to the almost excessively pink Marrakech.

The real fun started when we hit the medina.

We had been in a few on the tour so far but this was the first where not even motorbikes were allowed. So they used donkeys.

The reason for the vehicle ban was soon obvious, many of the roads were barely passable on foot because they were so narrow.

They were also very windy and confusing. We needed three guides to see us safely through and to keep the group together. This was a city that getting lost in would not be much of a challenge. In the time that we spent in there we did not find any main routes that could have been used to restore bearings.

We were lead to several notable sights that I suspect would have been impossible to find without our guides.

These usually looked the same from the outside but walk through a door and we were in a madrasa or mosque.

This was a lively lived-in and comfortable city too and I loved walking though it and being among all the people who were very tolerant of the tourists blocking their streets.

We were treated to a couple of Intense Retail Experiences but this time they were a natural and welcome part of the tour.

The first was the tannery.

Before we did the shopping we went up to the roof to see how the leather was made. We were each given a sprig of mint to sniff and we needed it. From our vantage point we could see the various vats that the leathers went through in a process that had changed little in centuries. The people in the picture show how big the operation was.

The shop was actually good and several of our group bought leather jackets or bags. I was tempted but we sort of ran out of time before I could even make my mind up on what kind of jacket I wanted. The one I bought in Vienna twenty years ago will just have to last a little longer.

The next shop was silk, or rather it wasn't. What they called silk was actually made from a plant, argan, which we had come across in Marrakech as the source of a superior cooking oil, and other magical things.

We did not spend long in the silk shop and I am not sure that anybody bought anything.

One of the prettiest places we were shown was the Bou Inania Madrasa which dates back to 1351. This was just one of the many times that I was struck by just how old a lot of what we were seeing was.

Fez was a hard place to take pictures of as most of the paths were too narrow and too full of people to be able to get a proper shot. I have got a couple of pictures of the  streets but there are the untypical wider ones.

We spent a long enjoyable time in the medina and it was late afternoon before we were shown the way out and taken back to the hotel.

I was still in the mood for a little exploring so I went for a walk in the area around the hotel. This was in a new part of town and not that convenient for exploration. There was a wide boulevard outside and the centre of that had a long garden in the centre with fountains and statues.

It was all very pleasant but completely lacked the character of the old town.

We headed back to the old town for our evening meal.

This was in a restaurant in what had been a riad, a grand house with a central courtyard garden, which had been converted by putting a roof over the garden.

The high level of decoration lay testament to the house's rich past.

We were treated to some reasonable local entertainment, unlike in Marrakech were it seemed rather fake. The only problem was the way that the evening was planned, all three courses of food arrived within an hour and then we were meant to sit through the entertainment for another two hours. There was a mini-revolt around 10:30 and several of us who were very tired and starting to get bored by then made a move back to the coach. Unfortunately that meant missing the belly dancer who was coming on as we walked out, even so it was the right decision.

We had seen a lot of Fez in a full day and seen things that were beautiful, old, different and, above all, interesting. Fez is a city that I would like to go back to and next time I would try to do it without a guide.

On the slow train from Marrakech to Fez

This was the day of the holiday that nobody was looking forward to very much.

The four hour journey down from Rabat to Marrakech had been hot and uncomfortable so the prospect of taking seven hours to go all the way back and then on to Fez was not promising.

In the end everything worked out more or less fine. The one problem was that while we had first class tickets we did not have reservations for specific seats whereas some other passengers did so some of us got moved on after having found a good seat. I lost my window seat early on and had to move to a middle seat in another compartment.

The ride was a lot more comfortable this time, either the air-conditioning was better, or it was a little cooler or we were all more used to the heat by then.

The other thing that helped was the observation area at the very back of the train with reasonably clean glass on three sides.

Obviously the view was the much the same as on the way down but the greater comfort and the better viewing facilities made it seem better.

Apart from the view I had a wealth of podcasts to entertain me and the seven hours passed easily enough.

I had packed a little to eat and drink but we were all getting touches of icky tummy so I played safe and just had a croissant and a few sips of water. I do not eat much at lunchtime anyway, and eat even less in the heat, so that was not a problem and I preferred to be safe rather than sorry.

We stopped a few times to allow people to get on and off and to allow other trains to pass. These were opportunities to take more photos while keeping an the guard to make sure that the train did not sneak off.

We arrived in Fez in much better mood than we feared and the day was actually rather good. It was restful and interesting and I wanted a holiday where I was busy some days and not on others.

We arrived in Fez late in the afternoon and it was a short coach ride from the station to our hotel in a modern part of the town. I was still not hungry so I stayed in the hotel and finished what I had bought for my lunch. The hotel had good wi-fi so I spent the rest of the evening catching up with things, like making sore I had the latest Archers podcasts.

Tomorrow would be another day and one best faced rested.

Around and in Marrakech

Our second day in Marrakech started with a trip out of the city to see a Berber village.

On the way we were told that, broadly speaking, the flat areas of Morocco were inhabited by Arabs and the hilly areas by Berbers. So that is why we headed out to the hills.

This was a was a part of Morocco that attracted weekenders escaping the city for some greenery and cool waters so the route was lined with shops, restaurants and camels to tease money from internal tourists, plus the steady number of external tourists like ourselves. Also there to greet us were some pretty insistent street traders who appeared by magic whenever the coach stopped and who then followed us as we took in the sights. They really did not know how to take no for an answer.

We were first driven up a gorge and then back down again to see the many bridges across the ravine. The height of the bridges indicated how high the river rises when at full strength but this was the end of the Summer and there was little of the river left.

The Berber cottage was a little mill fed by a cut from the river. And having fed the mill the water went on to the kitchen where it ran past the fire before returning to the river.

The cottage was, much as expected, composed of several small separate rooms. It was all on one level and I suspect that was partially because the mud construction would not support anything more.

What was a surprise was the television sets. I liked them as it suggested that this was a real cottage rather than some pastiche of one prepared for tourists.

It did not take long to see everything in the cottage and we were soon back fighting our way through the paddlers to the coach and on for lunch in one of the grander restaurants nearby. Personally I would have liked a couple more stops just to take pictures but our guide had other ideas.

This general picture of the area around the Berber village shows how the river creates a green line through the dry landscape. Right next to the river a number of Summer cafes had sprung up to take advantage of the flat land and the visitors.

After lunch we were taken back to the hotel. There was a horse and cart trip to Jardin Majorelle arranged but that sounded too tacky for me so I gave it a miss.

I took a taxi there instead.

Not only was that a great deal cheaper but it meant that I could stay as long as I wanted rather than leave when our guide decided it was time to go back, which turned out to be not long after the group got there.

The garden is small and, if challenged, you could probably walk all around the edge in under two minutes. Of course the point was not to walk around it quickly but to do so very slowly to take everything in.

The garden's main claim to fame these days is that it was owned by Yves Saint-Laurent until his death in 2008 and his ashes are scattered they.

The gardens dates from French colonial time and was designed by a French artist, Jacques Majorelle, who gave his name to both the garden and the shade of blue that dominates it.

It is a very structural garden with several main features, some with water.

The shock, and brilliance, of the garden comes from the sympathetic clash of colours with the blue structures, tropical green plants and many bright pots.

Despite being busy, this is one of Marrakech's main tourist spots, there was a strong sense of calm to match the beauty. I stopped for a drink to soak in both.

The gardens shut abruptly at 5:30pm when it was still light and I was still fresh so I decided to walk the 3km or so back to the hotel. Actually I walked a slightly longer route but a U-turn soon corrected that!

There was a quicker route back but I chose to go in to the centre of the medina rather than skirt around it. I simply failed to see the point of having some down-time in the hotel when I could be out exploring the city.

The medina was still buzzing and enticing. It was tempting to find a cafe and settle there for a while but heading back towards the hotel was a better plan.

That plan got interrupted by a road on the map that was not there on the ground and a park that demanded exploration.

This was the Cyper Park, so called because it had some internet kiosks scattered throughout it. It was a very formal and varied garden with plenty of space for some serious strolling.

I managed to catch this garden just before closing time so just as I got to the far end I was turned back by a whistle-blowing attendant. The sun had all but set by then so it was time to move on anyway.

The last surprise on the way back to the hotel was a section of old wall. As with the rest of Marrakech it was a fetching pink and as with all such walls in Morocco it had irregular holes punctured in it.

From there the hardest part of getting back was crossing a busy road. The rules were somewhat different there and they did not have pedestrian crossings. Instead people just walk out in to the traffic which slows down for them. It looks a little scary but it works. And I had seen it work before in Tunisia, Dubai and London.

We were fending for ourselves that night and I chose to go to the cafe that I had seen near to the hotel. The same brilliant idea had occurred to about a dozed of our group (of 37) and to lots of locals. The place was packed. It also did good food and juices. A wise choice indeed.

Reflecting on the day over my Spaghetti Arabica it was easy to see that the free-time in the afternoon and early evening was the best part of the day. It is often thus.

Old Marrakech was warm, friendly and very pink

Our first day in Marrakech proved to be a busy one.

Our hotel was a little way from the city centre, about 1km, so we were taken on the coach to the fringes where our long walk started.

Inside the medina walls felt very different from the other medinas I had been too (Casablanca, Rabat and Tunis) in that it was very open. It felt much like any other town and it just happened to have an old wall around it.

The feeling of openness was encouraged by the various parks and gardens that we saw on our short ride.

Just inside the wall was some of very old Marrakech. This is Koutoubia Mosque. It is the largest mosque in Marrakech but its main point of interest is that it dates from the 12th century. This is on the edge of one of the parks and the approach to it walking through the park built the sense of anticipation and excitement.

Marrakech is pink.

Apparently it is some sort of diktat but whatever the reason it give the town a distinctive feel. Much like all the sand coloured buildings in Dubai do.

It looked busy and worn, like a vibrant old town should. There were people out shopping, shop keepers sitting half in and half out of their shops and a fleet of small vehicles providing them with goods to sell.

We were led along a couple of streets to a palace. The name escapes me, but that does not matter. The point is that in a town that looked a little worn in places there were places where beauty was allowed to flourish.

The design and features were similar to other buildings that I had seen decorated with intricate plaster and coloured ceramics so to ring the changes slightly I've chosen a picture of some patterned wood. This was also a feature of the other grand buildings that I had seen but it was often hidden on high ceilings in dark rooms and so did not photograph very well (I refuse to use flash as it destroys the colour).

Back outside it was getting hotter but it was still very pink. As always I found myself taking lots of pictures and my daily total reached almost 250. That's how good Marrakech was.

The next place we were taken was a small mausoleum.

The arrangement of the graves was according to set rules with only direct members of the family included in the mausoleum itself, that meant daughters but not wives, and outside were the rest of the family and also the most important servants. People like Bruce Wayne's Alfred.

The graves were essentially flat and some had a raised block with the height of the block indicating the importance of the person buried beneath.

There was also a cat and while I usually avoid animals as much as I avoid people I took a picture of this one because I liked the contrast of the square-patterned graves and the dishevelled white ball of the cat.

We were next treated to our first Intense Retail Experience (IRE) of the holiday. We coined the term IRE on our China holiday to describe the frequent attempt to sell us things often disguised as a visit to something cultural.

We were taken to a shops selling goods derived from local plants, e.g. cooking oils, face creams, tea and herbal remedies. A lively and effective salesman gave a good explanation of each item and was rewarded with some good sales afterwards.

Then it was back to the hotel for lunch. We were left to our own devices for this and I went to the pool bar in the even grander hotel that shared the site.

We regrouped later in the day to go back to the medina and we started with another IRE. This time is was carpets.

The show was less impressive in that we were not given much information about the different techniques or styles. Instead we had different rugs thrown before us at an extraordinary pace.

One couple had gone to Morocco with the intention of buying a rug and they were the only people to so so. Luckily it was a short stop and we were soon back on the street.

We were led to the main square in the old town that was getting livelier as the sun set on a hot day.

In addition to all the stalls that we had seen elsewhere in the medina there were also lots of entertainers (using that term in its widest sense) there to entice coins from the many visitors and tourists. There were jugglers, fire-eaters, henna tattooists, people in regional costume and people with monkeys. I had to be careful when taking photographs not to include an entertainer otherwise payment would have been demanded.

The square was ringed with bars on the upper level and we were advised by our guide to go up there to get a fuller view of the square.

The rules were you had to buy a drink on the way in and they did not do beer so I found myself on the terrace with a bottle of Fanta. A first for me.

Most of the people on the terrace with me seemed to be foreigners too but the square was mostly filled with locals doing what they had done for centuries.

The atmosphere was lively and expectant. After a quite afternoon in the hot sun the locals were getting ready for a long evening, we were told by one person that the main events would be happening around 10pm, but we had to move on.

Like the China holiday, we were taken to a large local restaurant that only had tourists in and clearly did not expect anybody else. As with most meals on the tour the vegetarian option was unimaginative but the meal was good enough and the local musicians were not too distracting. The belly-dancer was distracting, as she was meant to be, as she moved around the room pausing to do a little turn for each group. I have no idea how genuine it was but it did liven up a quiet evening that I would rather have spent in a bar/cafe in the square.

Even with the siesta in the hotel and a couple of retail sessions, we had done and seen a lot that day and Marrakech started to feel like a friend.