Vacation

Today was a guided tour to some of Marrakesh, beginning with the beautiful Bahia Palace, followed by the just as lovely Majorelle Garden. Many photos of these two attractions!

We also spent time in the famous Jemaa el-Fnaa, the Marrakesh market square – which was surprisingly quiet on the Saturday afternoon that we were there!

Almost 33 years ago when Margaret and I were new together, our first vacation was to Morocco and we took a coach trip to Marrakesh and to the same Jemaa el-Fnaa square … I tried to take a photo to match one I had from that long ago trip:

We had a second day in Marrakesh after this one, available to “add on” experiences but we chose mostly to have a quiet day, just taking a walk to a good nearby lunch … in the evening was a quite unpleasant last night dinner with the group, at an expensive restaurant ($10 for a bottle of water!) that allowed people to smoke at their table, and was stuffed full of our and many other noisy tour groups. Yes there was some “fire entertainment” and dancers, but the smoke and noise spoiled everything else.

The final long long drive was around 10 hours including stops and due to the choice of Ait Sedrate Jbel El Oulia as the hotel, preceded by almost an hour of horribly narrow winding roads! Our final hotel was buried within the medina of Marrakesh, where coaches can’t go, so we had to transfer to a smaller vehicle, then walk the last ten minutes (but at least porters took our luggage!) … once again here’s a collection of views from the long drive (including spotting the world’s largest solar power plant!)

To give the group a rest between two very long driving days, we spent two nights and all of today in this hardly-a-town of Ait Sedrate Jbel El Oulia; a walk through the town was offered, but it wasn’t made clear that this walk would be two long hours of climbing and balancing on narrow and rocky paths, turn-arounds due to unsafe river crossings, and not much of the rest we were supposed to be doing!

There were some interesting views, and a nice lunch in someone’s own home; happily the tour organizers noted the tiredness of some and arranged transport back to the hotel after lunch …