Morocco, Spain, Portugal, Spain

ARgh! The post I just wrote deleted itself.... so I will try to write it again, but this will be an abridged version (not that you would have known that if I hadn't told you...).

Anyway, it's been a few days since the last post, because our hotels have been too fancy to provide free internet...

since we wrote last we have moved on from Morocco, back to Spain, then to Portugal, and back to Spain again.

From Casablanca, we went up to Tangier, via the imperial city of Rabat. Rabat was a short stop - we saw the imperial palace, and some royal tombs. We made a couple of stops along the coast - one to ride a camel on the shores of the Atlantic (it was only a 2 min ride, but cost 1 euro, so no complaints) and one at the point where the Atlantic meets the Mediterranean.

Stu and a tangine meal at Assilam

Me on a camel in a car park on the Atlantic

Me on the Atlantic coast, Stu on the Mediterranean coast

We took the boat back of the straights of Gibraltar - this time with clear views to both the African and European coasts. We got a view of the rock of Gibraltar on our drive up to Seville.

We spent two nights in Seville, and absolutely loved it! We also got another chance to see some Flamenco dancing - though this time we weren't in a cave, but in a proper theatre. And we went to a "typical" Andalusian villa for dinner one night. Lots of monuments and buildings to see during the day, as well as time to wander the streets, and enjoy tapas. We also visited the tomb of Christopher Columbus.

Flamenco dancers

 Stu and I at Christopher Columbus' tomb

Then to Lisbon. I will remember Lisbon for all the pastries and port! We saw churches and monuments,  sea-side villages, and hill top palaces and residences - but the pastries... YUMMMMM!!! We had a fantastic seafood meal by the riverside one night too - shrimp and prawns and crabs and cockles and fish....

above Lisboa

pastries!

Today we headed out of Portugal and back to Spain. We are currently in Salamanca, a beautiful university town. Unfortunately, it's currently still summer holidays, so it's not very busy, but we still enjoyed wandering its quaint streets.

in Salamanca's main square

So we will be heading back to Madrid tomorrow, and then fly on to France the following day. It'll probably be a few days before I make another post. I'll try to upload some photos tonight, but no promises - currently it takes over an hour per photo...

Moroccan Nights

When I last left you, Stu and I had just arrived in the city of Fes.

We started the next day in Fes with a tour of the city's medina - the central, original walled city. IT's famous for being a complete labarynth of narrow streets and alley ways. Photos to come, when I get somewhere with a faster internet connection. We visited a Morrocan rug store in the medina, though with starting prices of 750 euro, they were a bit beyond our range... The tannery was also an interesting experience - the mint leaves they gave us to sniff didn't really mask the smells coming from the giant clay vats.

a donkey in the medina

moroccan carpets

sniffing mint above the tanning vats

leather products

That afternoon we made a trip to the nearby city of Meknes. Fes and Meknes were both imperial cities. As were Marrakech and Rabat. So lots of forts, and medinas and casbahs (?) and palaces to see.
That evening, we went into the Fes medina, to a palace hidden amongst the winding streets for dinner and some belly dancing. I got dragged up to have a try at the end (one of the pit falls of being in a tour group where we are a few decades younger than everyone else is that you always get picked to be the volunteer...). There is video evidence, but I can't... um.... work out how to upload it.... hmmm.... *cough* *cough*

From Fes to Marrakech. We didn't see a lot of Marrakech, as Stu got a bit of heat stroke, so we spent most of our time in the (fabulous) hotel - in our air-con room, or out lazing by the pool. But there are similar structures to a lot of the imperial cities - medina, casbah, jewish quarter, etc.

food stalls at Marrakech's main square (I think the same one in "The Man Who Knew Too Much")

dinner at "Arabian Nights" theme place

 These are some photos of a home we visited in the Ourika Valley - about an hour from Marrakech. This is a typical village family home, and the served us tea and some fantastic bread and honey. The honey has a really interesting flavour - possibly flavourings from all the olive trees around.

inside the "indoor sauna" they use for bathing

tangine cooking

serving tea

Today we've driven to Casablanca. They have a MASSIVE mosque here. One of the largest in this part of the world, built some time in the last 20 years I think. Again, photos to come when I get somewhere with fast internet. Or at least, more than 45min free in the lobby.

We did some haggling in the Casablanca medina this afternoon. Managed to get a necklace down from 200 dinar to 50 dinar, so was proud of that effort!

Ok, my 45 min is likely up soon. Hope you're all well :)

Gypsies!

When I left off last time, we were about to head to the hills in Granada to watch some gypsy dancing. We went in a minibus through narrow streets, that could barely fit one vehicle, let alone the 2 way system they had going. There was a lot of backing up narrow streets, and forcing pedestrians into doorways, sucking in their guts, so we could get past.

The gypsy homes were set up on the hill and built into the rock - caves. The dancing was awesome, and they even got Stu up to dance at the end of it - something I've never gotten him to do in 8 years - but when a gypsy girl asks....

it's blurry, but this is Stu dancing with the gypsies!

The next day we explored the fortress and palace of Granada before driving down to the Costa del Sol. We explored white, Andalusian towns, and walked along the beach, and had a massive meal of sea food, accompanied by sangria - yum yum!

me at fortress in Granada

Today, we drove down the coast, past the rock of Gibraltar (which was surrounded by a thick fog, so we couldn't really see) and crossed the straits to Tangier. So we are now in Africa! It was a long afternoon drive, all the way down to the city of Fez. We'll be exploring Fez tomorrow.

we drove by massive wind farms, with hundreds of turbines along the ridges of the hills (this is for you Darren).

I've added a couple of photos to the last post (on Madrid and Toledo), but internet is slow here, so it takes time. I'll add photos this post sometime tomorrow hopefully, if I get a chance. We are currently sitting in the ridiculously opulent lobby of a 5 star hotel in Fes. Unfortunately, the rest of the hotel is only 5 star by Morocco standards...

Madrid and Toledo

The first real update of our trip! I will try and keep it short, because you can probably read a more informative, and better-written account of Spain in multiple other places...

So we started our day yesterday in Madrid with an awesome hotel buffet breakfast. I could get used to staying in fancy hotels... We only have 2 weeks of this though, before we have to start sleeping in the back of our hire car!

We spent the day exploring Madrid. We caught the metro from our hotel into the central part of the old city. We only had vague ideas of what we wanted to see, so just ambled around through the streets, taking in the atmosphere. Here are some photos:

 Puerta del Sol

Stu, infront of a statue of a king (i forget which one) with the Real Palace in the background.

We went to the Prado Museum in the afternoon, which has something like 10,000 pieces of art. We only saw a tiny fraction of that - didn't even make it to all the floors of the museum - but it was enough to fry my brain! So we had to go to the nearby park for icecream...

Me, in Madrid.

We met the tour group in the evening, and then went for a walking tour of the old city followed by a fancy dinner at a 150 year old restaurant, with a opera singer for entertainment. The city tour covered a lot of what we had seen earlier in the day, but we got the commentary as to what we were looking at, which was really good :)

Today, we drove to Granada via Toledo. I loved Toledo - would have liked to spend some more time exploring, but that is the rub of doing a tour.

Stu and me with old Toledo in the background.

So we are now in Granada, and have a couple of hours to amuse ourselves. Except that it is 40 degrees outside (at 5pm), so we are using the time to sit and catch up internetting in our air conditioned room.

This evening we are heading up to the hills above Granada to be entertained (gypsy dancing) by locals that live in caves - homes built into the side of the hills.

Ok, that's it for this update. :)

(I'm having trouble uploading photos, so there's only 1 for the moment... will get the others up as I can)

Luggage, What Luggage?

We've arrived in Madrid - and so did our luggage! Albeit on two seperate planes, neither of which was the one we were on... But we got to know the baggage claim area at Madrid airport really well. Was a bit of an adventure to get to the baggage claim area too, which was fun - you walk out from the arrival gate into the transit area on the 3rd floor, then wind your way til you eventually find escalators to take you up to the 4th floor where you pass immigration (with no forms to fill out - yay!) then down a series of escalators to the basement, where you catch a train for 5-10min, then up more excalators, and through security (no customs), and then, voila - you wait for another 45min and the baggage belts start moving...

Anyways, so we are here safe and sound after a long set of flights. Enjoyed the new airbus A380. nice and quiet where we were, at the back of the wing. And we had the row to ourselves from Sydney to Heathrow. Stu tried to play the pathetic, "look at my munted hands" card, but no upgrades resulted. We did get to board the buses to the planes at Heathrow first though...

We've checked into our fancy hotel, had a fancy meal (where I had to order "vino blanco" because the guy couldn't understand when I asked for water...) and are headed to bed so we can do some exploring tomorrow!

Mita and Stu :)

And it begins....

Hi everyone,

So I've decided to start this new, fandagled thing called BLOGGING! I know - crazy!
Basically, to start with, this will be a personal blog, chronicling what Stu and I are up to. Since lots of my friends aren't on facebook, and you probably don't all want long mass emails from me, if you're interested in what Stu and I are up to, come here and find out!
For the next 2 months, we'll be travelling in Europe, and will try to update regularly about our adventures!
We leave tomorrow! Yay!

Mita and Stu :)

Ps. feel free to leave comments!!