Our Grand Moroccan tour has been a continuous series of adventures, with each day unique.
Kasbahs of red earth that seems to spring up from the desert give way to the soft lilac blue vaulted streets and houses of Chefchaouen, with its cool fresh mountain springs. This is in contrast to the next day : the hustle of medieval Fez. An ancient medina for craft and trade, a labyrinth of narrow passageways where animals, handcarts and pedestrians combine .We are pressed tight to the wall to avoid the fully laden donkeys, which, by ancient code, and size take the right of way.
Marrakech is cosmopolitan by comparison. We stayed in beautiful sophisticated properties. A short walk can place you in ancient Morocco where we shopped for carpets, ceramics, lamps and antiques. Metal workers, dyers, and Zellig tilemakers, continue their ancient crafts in their own souks as families have done for centuries.
Essaouira is literally our last port of call. An ancient walled fishing town, harbour filled with cobalt blue fishing boats that set out daily from this salty, windy Barbary Coast. Hundreds of seagulls watch the fishermen's every move for their next meal. Seagull or gourmet, the food in Morocco does not disappoint. Slow cooked tagines with succulent prunes, figs, oranges, lemons, chestnuts or olives in a hundred different ways as you have never tasted leave you in anticipation. Our fresh seafood lunch overlooking Essaouira's long sandy beach sea is delicious. We walk through the white, blue trimmed cubed houses, vaulted passageways as we search out the thuya wood craftsmen and the pigment sellers dispensing the famous Murex: a rich purple collected from molluscs off Essaouira that Julius Caesar was to crave for his personal robes.
As the sun sets over camels and dunes and sinks down into the sea. We see this golden colour for the last time and reflect on our Grand tour of Morocco.
As always our adventure with the Innovative Travel Company and its people on the ground allowed us to experience Morocco and its highlights to the fullest. All our activities were perfectly co-ordinated, our guides were friendly and knowledgeable. And all our accommodation was remarkable. We felt like honoured guests and left with an abundance of inspiration and memories.
A chilly black starry night , a dromedary and its Arab speaking Berber keeper are all we are, out in the yet to be sun kissed dunes of the Merzouga . A soft dawn becomes the most brilliant burnt orange and suddenly all you have seen in movies or imagined surrounds you from all sides, standing on the crest of a giant sand dune in the vast and mighty golden red Sahara desert. My Grand Moroccan tour has been a continuous series of adventures, each day unique.
The lilac blue vaulted streets and houses of Chefchaouen with its cool mountain springs gave way to the hustle of Medieval Fez, passageways so narrow in the Medina that you must be pressed tight to a wall to avoid the fully laden donkeys who take the right of way.
The original medina, craft Marrakech, dyers , metalwork, The most cosmopolitan city
Essaouira Atlantic coast, salty air seagulls, blue fishing boats Thuya wood craftsmen.