Morocco

Morocco : September 30th

We drove in the dark through fertile plains to Tarifa to catch the ferry to Morocco. Lots of alfalfa and cotton, umbrella pines and this is also the area where Caballa Blanco ( the dancing horses) come from. It was interesting to see lots of wind turbines as we neared the coast. At the ferry we had our first taste of bribing! That was Miguel to get our passports stamped quickly. A few extra dirhams work wonders!

Sabah al khair! We had a smooth crossing to Tangiers and our local guide in Morocco is Khalid. Morocco ( El Magreb)has been a Muslim country since the 9th century with a dynasty of kings since the 17th century. The present king, Mohammed 6 th has modernised Morocco eg introduction of votes for women and divorce. Islam is the official religion but others are allowed and non- Muslims cannot go into the mosques.Polygamy is still practised with 4 wives allowed and many women still wear the jellaba. Morocco has remained authentic and both Arabic and French are spoken and surprisingly, more English is spoken than in Spain. Temperatures can get up to 48 degrees (not at the moment), it is a comfortable 25 degrees and about 30% humidity.
Tangiers had 1 million people and was rather scruffy with lots of unfinished blocky buildings. Apparently you don't have to pay tax if your house is unfinished! Morocco's population is 32 million with 5 million head of sheep! Under the French regime schooling is only compulsory from 6-12 years. As expected the landscape is very brown and dry and there is a lot of rubbish everywhere, especially plastic. There don't seem to be any fences and there were lots of herders with sheep, goats and cattle and crops of melon, strawberries, peanuts, sugarcane, and citrus fruit where irrigation was available.. Agriculture looks quite primitive eg ploughing with horses and lots of horses and carts and donkeys. The villages we drove through were terribly scruffy and the meat just hanging by the dirty roadside made me gag! Don't you love the photo of the butchers in a roadside stop we made! I also bartered for some pomegranates. You don't see many women, but there seem to be lots of men lounging around in the villages. As we climbed into the hills the soil seemed to improve and much of the land was cultivated but not yet planted.
We had a very long drive today . Fez is 5 hours from Tangiers so I had a swim in this lovely pool as soon as we arrived. We are staying in a very sumptuous hotel called Zalagh Park Palace. Tomorrow we go to the Medina and its bazaars with a traditional Moroccan evening at night.

Seville

Seville is a beautiful and vibrant city with its small squares,narrow labyrinthine streets, wrought- iron grilles, flower- bedecked balconies and atmosphere galore! It almost beats Paris as my favourite European city! It is divided into three regions - Macarena, Santa Cruz and Triana. It has stunning architecture, much of it Moorish and Baroque with magnificent tiles everywhere. The Guadalquivir River runs through Seville and it has lovely parks and boulevards, with orange trees everywhere. Miguel took us to the most lovely square last night called Plaza de Espagna. The beautiful old buildings were in red sandstone with a canal running through the square and ornate tiled bridges. Seville is a real mix of old and new. Many of the more modern buildings were built for the World Fairs in 1929 and 1992. We wandered through the lovely but touristy Santa Cruz area with the cathedral with its Giralda bell tower and we also visited the opulently tiled Pilatus Palace,which has been used in several films, such as 'Lawrence of Arabia.'
We started in Italica, the remains of a Roman town on the outskirts founded by Scipio in 206 BC! Emperors Hadrian and Trajan were born here. It was built because of the Rio Tinto mines : copper , zinc , silver and gold are still mined here. The amphitheatre, baths and some mosaics still exist, although the 1755 earthquake devastated much of Italica. Apparently one gladiator was paid the same as 100 soldiers!

En route to Seville

Back into Spain today and into Andalusia. It was grey and drizzling today as we drove through the dry rolling plains of the Alentejo with its woodlands of cork and olive trees. Cork trees are harvested every 10 years and live for approx 200 years. Cork is an important product from Portugal and is used for corks, handicrafts ( I have seen cork shoes and handbags) and for floors. We drove through villages of little white-washed houses with brightly-coloured window and door surrounds.When we crossed back into Spain and Andalusia it became hillier , still the cork and olive trees, but with more farming - quite barren with stone walls, horses, sheep, goats and also the black Iberian pigs which eat acorns and this apparently gives their meat a special flavor.
Festivals here include bull fights, bull running in Pamplona and other centres and 'la tomatina' on August 31st, which is the throwing of tomatoes in Valencia.
We are staying in a very posh hotel in Seville called Macarena. There are lovely old buildings and the old city wall are right outside. Tonight we went to a tapas dinner and flamenco show. The flamenco dancing was amazing and we all yelled 'Ole' until we were hoarse!

Cascais and Sintra

This afternoon we drove west down the coast to the charming town of Cascais. It was just a fishing village until 1870, since when it has become a fashionable town for the rich and royalty. Cascais and Estoril were also a place of escape for those fleeing the Nazis during WW2 and the place of exile for several European kings. Margaret and I had a superb fish kebab lunch and the waiter chatted us up and shouted us a port after our meal! Ian Fleming based his Casino Royale on the casino in Estoril.
Then we went inland to Sintra where we visited the National Palace, dating from the late Middle Ages as one of two summer palaces for royalty and we had to climb up and down 100 steps! The palace had beautiful imported Moorish and blue Portuguese tiles. In 1992 the Sintra palace was declared a world heritage site by UNESCO. Sintra was a very pretty hill town, which inspired Byron and Hans Christian Anderson.I had hoped to go to the Gulbenkian Museum but were we're too late getting back to Lisbon after a very busy day. To Seville tomorrow.

Lisbon

Portugal became a republic in 1910 and has a population of 10.5 million, of which 700,000 live in Lisbon.The Tagus River runs through Lisbon. It was originally settled by the Romans and then the Arabs. It was an important cosmopolitan trading post until an earthquake and subsequent tsunami in 1755 destroyed much of Lisbon , so it doesn't have the beautiful old buildings like Madrid. Many of the buildings are pastel coloured. It does, however, have the most beautiful main street called Liberty Avenue, which is a tree- lined boulevard not unlike the Champs Élysées. Also all of the streets are paved in patterns in limestone and basalt as in Coimbra. The downtown area -the Maquis of Pombal Square, the Restoration Square and Rossio Square were lovely and the hill suburbs are linked by funicular. The Castle of St George on the hill above was built in the 16th century. There are two huge bridges joining both sides of the Tagus River - the April 25th and Vasco da Gama Bridges.We also went to Belem to see the Belem Tower, an old fortress , the Discoveries Monument dedicated to Portuguese discoverers and Henry the Navigator and the Geronimus Monastery.The latter was a huge Gothic cathedral which wasn't destroyed in the earthquake. The huge tombs of Vasco da Gama and the poet are Luis de Camões....( the Portuguese Shakespeare) were here. The Order of Christ ( former Templars) funded many of the famous Portuguese voyages and subsequent maritime expansion. Their Red Cross was on the sailing ships' sails. The photo of the reddish building with the turret is of Lisbon's bull ring which is also used as a concert hall. Some of our group went to a bull fight tonight. It started at 10pm, so needless to say, Margaret and I didn't go!

Coimbra, Batalha & Fatima

Coimbra is another lovely old university city on the Mondego River with the two Santa Clara monasteries, old and new. It is built on a hill with the university and the cathedral high above the city. I spent the whole morning up at the most beautiful university I have ever seen. It dates back to 1288 and the students all wear gowns. The magnificent library is recognized as one of the most sumptuous in the world. It was built between 1717 and 1728 and the internal walls are floor to ceiling bookcases decorated with Chinese motifs and beautiful wooden inlaid tables. The chapel and salon for concerts were also lovely.It was a very steep climb up to the university on cobbled streets, which are made by hand with each stone sunk into sand and tapped in individually. Amazing!(see photo)
Our next stop was at the beautiful Gothic monastery at Batalha, which was built in limestone at the end of the 1300s as a Domincan abbey.It was enormous and the unfinished chapel had special ornate carving called 'manuelino'. Many famous Portuguese are buried here eg Henry the Navigator, John the First and Philip of Lancaster.Our lunch stop was at the famous Sanctuary of Fatima.This is famous for the story of 3 illiterate children in 1917 looking after sheep who witnessed the apparition of Fatima and the subsequent miracles. Pope John Paul 2 was a frequent visitor here. The three attractions here were the Chapel of the Apparitions, the old basilica with the tombs of the 3 children and the modern basilica.We saw pilgrims going on their knees down a long marble path with their rosaries doing penance.Our final stop was to a bodega for a wine and port tasting. At night we went out to a typical Portuguese dinner and the entertainment was Fado singing and folk dancing.