Palais Medina and Spa in Fes, Morocco
We were delighted to get to our hotel in Fes, the Palais Medina and Spa Hotel. Our room was very comfortable, but my shoes were muddy from Volubilis, and I forgot to take a photo of the room because I really, really needed to wash my shoes off and hope they would dry by the next day as we hike around Fes. It was very large, very beautiful, had a seating area and a huge bathroom. The bed was marvelous.
The Hotel had some quirks. As we were about to board the elevator, others from our ship were getting off and saying “We are NOT going to stay here!” and we wondered what that was all about. On our floor, the hallway was so dimly lit that we struggled to figure out where the card went into the door. But the room was lovely, comfortable, quiet, and it had a wonderful view.
We hurried down to dinner, seeing a sign that said “group dining” we knew where to go.
(I didn’t take this photo; I lifted it from the hotel website, but it looks like the room we stayed in)
From the elevator area into the lobby area:
View at night from our balcony looking left
View early in morning looking out
More view. It really was a lovely room.
This has to be one of the worst experiences of the tour, tied with trying to get through Charles DeGualle to catch our Atlanta flight. The dining room was chaos.
“Grab a place, quickly; they are already starting to take the food away!” one fellow passenger urged us. We found places with friends, then went to search the inevitable buffet. There were still plenty of salad-y things, but entree pickings were slim. People in this hotel were elbowing one another out of the way, as if they had never seen food before, and this food was not worth elbowing anyone out of the way. It was buffet food, and the message it sent me was “this hotel takes groups because we have to in order to stay afloat, but we hate groups.” Dinner was purely awful. I can’t even remember what we found to eat, but except for a pumpkin soup, it was not good and not memorable food except for being not-good.
You’d think it would be hard to screw up breakfast, but breakfast was worse. They had those two little coffee maker things, and long lines waiting for both tea and coffee. Worse – there were no coffee cups! Not one! After a while a few showed up, and what happened when fewer coffee cups than coffee drinkers were available showed us just how very thin the veneer of civilization is. This was our experience at this ultra-first-class hotel. Horrors!
Lesson learned: I did spot a restaurant separate from the group dining restaurant. Knowing now what I know, I would choose to pay for a good Moroccan meal at the private-dining restaurant. Morocco just isn’t that expensive, and Moroccan cuisine is delicious, worth paying for! I would never settle for a mediocre meal, paid for as part of our tour, just because it was paid for. Life is too short!
On the other hand, it was late, we had a long day, I still needed to make sure my shoes were cleaned, and we just wanted to grab a bite and go. This was a nice hotel, but not a stellar experience.
Rabat and Volubilis, On the Road in Morocco
Somehow the scheduled departure this morning is delayed due to problems getting the buses to the ship, and some sort of negotiations are going on. We leave for Rabat, getting there late morning, and it is pouring. We start at a Marinid Site, Chellah, and I walk down and take photos, listening to the guide, getting wetter and wetter, and then I think “Hmmm, I don’t really care that much” and head back up hill to the nice, dry bus.
I like taking photos, but trying to take photos with rain rain rain is not so easy. This is an overview of a structure at Chella, and if you look closely, you will see a stork on the top of the tower on the left. This site is covered in storks! I had to wonder, what makes this site so attractive to storks, and the guide said they had been coming here forever.
This marabout must be for a woman; it has a green door:
We go to visit a mosque that never got built, and another mosque that someone built for some reason, and I don’t have any photos because it was POURING rain and I just stayed on the bus and read my book. Around noonish, we headed for the Golden Tulip, another place that is feeding hundreds, buffet style, forgettable food.
We make a photo stop at the Kasbah of the Udayas
And then a photo stop at the Udaya Gate
We are in a bit of a rush; we want to get to Volubilis, an ancient Roman site, before the sun goes down. When we get there, it is raining, and slick, and the sun is going down.
It is very beautiful, and every time we have come here, to Volubilis, it has rained. AdventureMan liked this stop a lot more than I did.
El Jadida and Casablanca, Morocco
As we leave Marrakesh, I tell AdventureMan that we could easily drive here, and that gas prices are really good:
And AdventureMan reminds me that it is not the price per gallon, but the price per liter. Oh. That’s very different. The Moroccan countryside on our drive to El Jadida reminds me of Tunisia back in the late 1970’s when we lived there, full of little marabouts, or burial places of people who lived saintly lives. The guide explained if it is white, it is a man’s grave, if it has green or blue, it is a woman.
Market days along the route:
We reach El Jadida, where we are visiting an old Portuguese cistern. It turns out to be very beautiful. It also starts raining cats and dogs, making it very hard to take a good photo in any unsheltered place. The rain is really coming down! We are soaked!
Those are not blue skies; those are cloudy grey skies!
Light fixtures 🙂
The old ramparts of the Portuguese fort:
We stopped at a huge place where, once again, they were set up to serve groups. There must have been 500 – 600 people serving themselves. I saw ONE Moroccan dish. There were several Chinese dishes, an entire section of Italian entrees, all in all, a very bland selection of “international foods” which means you can find something to eat, but it won’t taste all that great. It is engineered to be nourishing and inoffensive. There were many many kinds of desserts, in tiny portions. This was a very not-special kind of place to eat.
The entry was built to be impressive:
We were very close to Casablanca, and made a trip along the coastline to see one of the largest mosques in the world, the Hassan II mosque.
We made a brief stop so everyone could photograph “Rick’s Cafe.” which never existed except in the movie, but now has a restaurant of that name, in Casablanca, and draws in a lot of people who saw the movie.
Hotel Le Meridian N’Fis in Marrakesh
I can be a pain in the neck when I don’t get my way. When we booked, we had been told our room would be at the Sofitel Marrakech, and I was excited. When we got our final package, we found we were going to the Meridian N’Fis, not the same kind of hotel at all.
“Oh, but it is one of the finest rooms!” we were assured, and they explained that it just was too cumbersome to have some of the guests in one hotel and some in another. Umm. OK.
We hopped in a cab from the Jamaa El-Fna; it was easy. The cab ride cost a dollar. We could have walked, but we didn’t know where the hotel was, and it was maybe a mile away. Our guide had called and said we would be arriving separately (our guide, Antonio, was superb) so they were expecting us. They gave us an orientation, and showed us to our room.
Entrance to the hotel:
Passage to our room:
Gardens and pool:
Gorgeous serene spa:
Lovely seating areas:
Hallway to bar, lounge and restaurant:
You can see, it is a lovely hotel, modern, clean, has some atmosphere. Here is our room. It is spacious, the bathroom is large, and we have our own sitting area with complimentary wine and fruit, and our own patio outside. It’s lovely.
You can see it is very modern and very clean. We also discovered it is across from a mall, which, when we visited, reminded us greatly of Qatar and Kuwait, and we wondered if Gulf money was invested in creating the mall. It had a Carrefour, and many modern stores. It was fun wandering around with the Moroccan shoppers. The hotel is only a short distance from the oldest and newest shopping areas in town.
I tried to be a good sport. (I am betting AdventureMan would roll his eyes; I was quiet, and disappointed, and not very happy.) I would never stay here in a million years if I were not part of a group. It is western. It is Morocco-lite. I remember with great nostalgia the homey hotel we stayed in years ago, with its wonderful tiny restaurant and genuine food, tiled walls and beautifully worked wood and I wish we were staying somewhere “more Moroccan.”
The bed is wonderful. The bath is wonderful. The promised Wi-Fi is non-existent.
We had a “garden” view. I asked the conceirge where the rooms were that had the view of the Atlas mountains, and he said only a few rooms, at the top of the hotel had a view, and only on a very clear day. It must have been these rooms:
The food in the dining room is pretty good. In fact, we ate pretty well. Breakfast featured one woman making thin, flaky Moroccan pastries, worth waiting in line for.
As we left the hotel for El Jadida, there were souvenir vendors at the bus. Our fellow travelers who had stayed with the group were a little shopping-starved, and these vendors did great business. The prices seemed reasonable, too, as shoppers snapped up silver bangles, earrings, clothing and shawls. As the buses began to pull out, the most popular vendor hopped on her motorcycle to head for the next stop. I admired her entrepreneurship.
On Our Own in the Souks of Marrakesh and the Jemaa el-Fna
Free at last!
We are as giddy as children let out of school as the groups head left and we head right, going deeper into our favorite territory, the souks (small shops) in the great city of Marrakesh.
Before we ever went to Marrakesh, many years ago, we read a book by Elizabeth Warnock Fernea, author of Guests of the Sheikh, called A Street in Marrakesh, talking about how her family lived in the center of Marrakesh, among Moroccans, and the adjustments they made as they grew to learn more about their environment. You know how you can read a book and feel like you had lived it? We felt we had lived in Marrakesh.
When we visited with our son, we had a car and were driving all through Morocco. We had left Ouazazarte and driven over the Atlas Mountains, stopping here and there to buy fossils and “thunderballs” which are also called geodes. It was late, and dark when we got to Marrakesh, and we had to stop and ask directions at a gas station how to find our hotel. We knew we were near, and we didn’t know how to close the distance. This was before smart phones and Google Maps.
Our son and I watched AdventureMan from the car, and as we watched him ask the two men working there, one pointed left and one pointed right. We were dying laughing. And, actually, both were right, there was an obstacle between us and the hotel and you could go right – or you could go left. At that moment, a motorcycle drove up, listened to the question and offered to guide us to our hotel. This is the essence of Morocco to us; the kindness and the hospitality of the Moroccans.
I wish I could remember the name of the hotel, but our room was huge, and full of tile work. Our son had his own area, on a separate level in the same room, and his own TV. It was a far cry from a sterile, modern hotel; this was full of color and detail, tile and wood work.
The next day, we hired a private guide for a tour of Marrakesh, and had a wonderful time exploring all kinds of wonderful places.
So now, off we go, and the smells and the feel of the souks almost make us giddy; we are back in our element.
As we wander, we can hear roosters crowing, and, in the middle of the souks, we find a souk devoted to roosters. It is the middle of the afternoon, a quiet time of day, perfect for wandering.
Me and my attraction to light fixtures 🙂
A mural of the Koutoubia mosque; one of the reasons we felt so secure in this souk is that if you get lost, you just look for the highest tower around, and that is the Koutoubia mosque, which takes you to Jemaa el-Fna.
We walked to our content, and then settled in at late afternoon to a cafe with a terrace high over the Jemaa el-Fna, where we had our choice of tables and could watch the market come to life. As we sipped our mint tea, the other tables filled; Moroccan families, tourist couples, assorted characters. The day is gorgeous, we have a shaded location, life is sweet. We’ve soaked in the sights and the smells. We’ve done more than our 10,000 steps. We enjoyed this afternoon immensely.
Dining in the Dar Es Salaam, Marrakech
We have driven a couple hours to get from Casablanca to Marrakech, and the bus lets us off just a short walk from the restaurant, the Dar Es Salaam. I don’t believe this restaurant is open to the public; I believe this restaurant is a dedicated group-tours service restaurant.
I admire what they do. They have a lovely venue, it looks like it might have been one of the grand old homes in the city, or even an old mosque. It has elaborate decorations, and lovely spaces. Whatever it was at one time, it has been gutted, and turned into a restaurant that can seat and feed many many people in a very short amount of time.
Those are not leftover bread crumbs on the table, they are rose petals to welcome groups.
Tables were marked with signs indicating Smithsonian and/or Purple, and as soon as eight people were seated around a table, service began, first hot towels, then water and small appetizers/mezze. They were pretty good. Most were not heavily spiced.
Appetizers were some kind of lentils, a beet salad, a mashed potato and pea combination, something maybe with a little lamb, and olives. The olives were delicious.
They served a huge tajine with some kind of beef dish. It was well cooked, like beef and carrots, with little or no spices that I could detect. Nourishing. Filling.
The venue is spectacular. It is truly a fabulous environment in which to take a meal. The catering service has paid attention to detail, with rose petals on the table, good settings, enough water, good sweets at the end of the meal and hot mint tea poured with a flourish. The restrooms were clean and there were several. I admire the way they can serve so many people so quickly, get-them-in, get-them-out and give them a meal in which there is little to object to . . . unless you’ve had Moroccan cooking before, and like a little taste in your food. We like taste in our food.
We’ve been married and traveling together for so long now that we know we aren’t going to be able to stay with the group. We love Marrakech; we’ve been here before. The last time was with our son, about fifteen years ago, but not a lot has changed. Our group leader looks a little worried, until we explain that we know the city, we speak Arabic and French, we know the customs, and we can find our way to the hotel on our own when we are finished. We walk – we almost run – away before anyone else knows we are gone.
Underway on the Guadalquivir
Before we even get underway, we hear the big engines start to rumble. AdventureMan wants to sleep a little longer, but I am exited and want to watch us cast off and head down the Quadalquivir, which is Spanish for the Arabic Wadi El Kebir, or big waterway. Or valley. I always think of wadis as dry, a place to potty under the bridge when you live in a country with few public conveniences, but the Guadalquivir is big, and deep, as wide as the Neckar River when we lived in Heidelberg.
The sun is coming up as we depart:
Most of what we pass is countryside, low and fertile.
Now and then we encounter another boat.
We meet and chat with other passengers as we watch the countryside go by. Soon, there is a lecture (none are mandatory, but all are interesting) about the context of the voyage, which is called Passage of the Moors. We get a lot of information from different lecturers, some of it repetitive, which is good, because when you hear it more than once, it might stick. There are lectures for the whole boat, and lectures for separate groups, and as we are in a gathering of the Smithsonian group, we pass Cadiz, en route for Casablanca. My heart grieves; I had dearly wanted to see Cadiz, but instead we had the wonderful day seeing Seville on our own, hopping on and off the bus and visiting the two museums.
This is an oddity. This is a small ship, and does educational trips, but educational trips for grown-ups. There is not one single child on board the ship, nor are there things for a child to do. There is a swimming pool, but it is outside, and unfilled; the weather is probably too cool. There is a spa, and there are lounges and a library, there is a lot to do – if you are an adult. (You can find the ship by Googling Voyages to Antiquity)
I skip the afternoon lecture to sit out on our balcony, which is large, and has beautiful wood fixtures, deck chairs, and a nice table. I read, I watch the waves go by, and wish I had a fishing pole. We are on the sunset side of the ship, so I get to take a photo of the sunset over the Mediterranean Sea.
And the next morning, we enter Casablanca!
We dock, and for a while watch other ships come in, watch dock life in Casablanca, and pack for our day and overnight in one of our favorite cities in the world, Marrakech. The ship we are watching coming in is a sister ship to the ship that went aground in Italy not too long ago, a much bigger ship than we are on.
Our entry visa into Morocco:
Seville’s Folklorique Museum
Just across a large plaze is another wonderful museum, one I could happily spend many days in. Once again, they waved us through, they would not take our money. There were several exhibits showing us how things came about, how they developed wheat grinding, for example, how fabrics were woven, all with tableaux and short videos. We watched one very long video about a church that carries the Saint or Madonna around the town on a special cart once a year, and celebrates with a festival.
My favorite part of this museum is one whole wing devoted to textiles, embroidery and gossamer shawls, that remind me so much of the ancient, transparent “shayla” the elderly women used to wear as veils in old Qatar and old Kuwait. Nothing like the black opaque headscarves and face coverings of today; these were light and airy and as fragile as a spider’s web. I have one I treasure, but I keep it wrapped in a box because it can tear so easily. Here is a whole wing of a museum with glorious examples of exquisite handiwork of this nature.
Hand embroidered cut-work:
Hand worked lace and cut-work on fine linen:
Decorative tools and utensils:
The Folklorique Museum and tile patterns done in stone and mosaic:
Gossamer lace work:
Glorious white work:
Finely woven and embroidered silk:
We would haunt the flea markets of France, and find many similar treasures in France, tossed out by people who wanted new and glossy. I bought linens of all kinds, but nothing of this quality.
We were thrilled to have this extra day to see Seville more thoroughly, and to explore these two museums. Once again, and easy 10,000 steps 🙂
Hopping off at Seville’s Museum of Archaeology
We had wanted to see this museum, and thanks to this bonus day, woo hoooooo, the Hop-On Hop-Off bus lets us off just a short walk through the park to the Museum. The Museum attendants waved us through, wouldn’t even take our money, and directed us to start down-stairs.
This museum is full of treasures, carefully curated, beautifully edited. The pieces they display give good information. We found something lovely in every room. MdventureMan often commented about how good this museum was about placing the find in a meaningful context:
I am always interested in early needles 🙂 How man figured out how to make them from tiny bones, how they got the eyes in the needles without splitting them, fascinates me.
Bonus Day in Seville and the Hop-On, Hop-Off Bus
Our dedicated tour guide, Antonio, is very dedicated and very professional, and he works very hard to keep us all happy. When we see him the next morning, and ask him when the ship will be departing, he has a perplexed look. It’s past departure time. The ship isn’t moving. An hour later, the ship isn’t moving.
Then comes an announcement; because of all the rain, the Guadalquivir River has silted up and must be quickly dredged. We will depart tomorrow.
The schedule had been to go down the river to Cadiz, and for groups to go off to visit the sherry factories in Jerez. AdventureMan and I have travelled together well for so many years because we are quick to recognize when we just don’t care. We don’t care about sherry, or how it is made (OK, OK, yes we are passing on an opportunity of a lifetime, but . . . it’s OUR lives! We know what makes us happy!) We tell Antonio we are not going to Jerez; we will spend the day in Seville.
Tour directors always look a little worried when you tell them you are going off on your own. I can imagine they have experiences that back them up, but we don’t have to take a tour just because we paid for it, and we intend to have a great day on our own. He very graciously helps us get information for the Hop-On Hop-Off bus (I had ridden the one in Barcelona and loved it) and wished us well.
We weren’t sure where we were going, but there was a tourist office nearby where they pointed us down the street and told us where we could buy the tickets. They also gave us maps of the city and the bus routes.
Hop-On, Hop-Off Bus
The bull fighting ring:
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