Copenhagen, Sweden

September 2-3, Home to Copenhagen. We travel to Copenhagen through Frankfurt on Lufthansa. The trip worked as planned and we enjoyed the Lufthansa service. The transfer to our flight to Copenhagen was easy and we arrived in relatively good shape to our historic Railroad hotel the Copenhagen Plaza.

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Entrance to Tivoli Gardens

We ventured to the Historic Tivoli Gardens across the street from our hotel. The garden and scenery are wonderful for the over 100 year old park. We watched some kids on the rides and had as a goal to enjoy Smörgås, Sweden's open faced sandwiches, for dinner. We found some wonderful ones at the new food court and sat outside with some wine and our sandwiches, watching people. It was funky Tuesday at the place we got the wine so we have some more wine and listen to the 50’s 45rpm vinyls. Welcome to Denmark.

Smoked Salmon Smörgå with soft boiled egg, pickles,
horse radish sauce on pumpernickel bread

Ports visited. Copenhagen, Sweden, Rostock, Germany, Tallinn, Estonia,

St. Petersburg, Russia, Helsinki, Finland and Stockholm, Sweden.

Ouarzazate to Casablanca

April 28 Ouarzazate to Casablanca. 

We are picked up at the hotel and transfered to the airport for a short plane ride back to Casablanca. While check in is ok, we have the strange experience of having 2 of our 4 bags torn apart for inspection for no reason. We arrive at Casablanca and have quite a bit of confusion in meeting our layover tour of the city.

Downtown Casablanca

Our tour guide turns out to be strange with many quirky opinions, the driver does not put on the air conditioning and its hot and there is lots of traffic. After our lunch along the ocean which was quite nice, we cut our losses and ask to go to the hotel. The Atlas hotel is quite nice and we decompress and have a nice dinner, ready to go home.

Merzouga, Todre Gorge and Ouarzazate

April 27 Merzouga, Todre Gorge and Ouarzazate. 

We meet another family today

This is our last day with our tour friends and we leave the dunes to pick up the bus in Efound. We are headed to the Todra Gorge, one of Morocco's most spectacular sights. It is a vast fault in the plateau separating the High Atlas from the Jbel Sarhro, two sheer cliffs over 95 ft high separated by a narrow corridor only 70 ft wide.

Todra Gorge

Later we cross the southern slopes of the High Atlas before arriving at the captivating city of Ouarzazate. We stop en route in the heart of the Dades Valley at the oasis of Kelaa Mjouna. We stay at the hotel Al Baraka which resembles and upscale truck stop. We decide we are too tired to back to town for dinner so hang out and have dinner at the hotel and prepare for the trip home.

Rissani and the Merzouga Dunes

April 26 Rissani and the Merzouga Dunes

Tafilalt Oasis

This morning we journey to the historic 8th century caravan town of Rissani to visit the Tafilalt Oasis. The first capital of the Tafilalt and the last stop on the caravan routes south, Rissani has a special place in Moroccan lore. The ruling Alaouite dynasty (from whom Morocco's current ruler, Mohammed VI, is a descendant) launched its bid for power here before triumphing finally in Fes and Marrakech. Today, a quarter of Rissani's population still inhabits a large 17th-century ksar in the center of town.

Our guide takes us through the mossoleum for the founder and then through the town, including a stop at a family’s home and lastly a school. We take a little time for shopping including a rug shop.

The family's tent

We have lunch at a local pizzeria which has a local specialty much like a calzone. Then in the afternoon we drive by 4WD vehicle to Merzouga to witness sunset over the dunes.

Bedouin Father

On the way to the dunes we stop by a family that lives in the desert and have tea under their tent. The children are very curious of us, as I am sure we looked very strange to them. The family is Bedouin, a group of nomadic Arab people who have inhabited the desert regions in North Africa, the name Bedouin means "desert dweller." After our stop we are on our way through the desert.

Sama, our tour leader and one of the girls we met

We have time to explore the dunes on foot or by camel. We opt for some rest and watch night begin over the desert dunes. This is a magical landscape, with huge drifting expanses of sand dunes reaching heights of more than 150 ft. Their color shifts from pink to gold to red to white depending on the time of day. We have dinner at the hotel and retire for the evening.

Camels in the Sahara desert

April 25 Fes to Erfoud

Traveling through the Middle Atlas mountains

Today we leave for the Middle Atlas mountains, a region of folded mountains and high, windswept plateaux, vast forests of cork oak and cedar, and lakes and streams full of trout. This is Berber country and sheep and goat-rearing is the main occupation. We drive through the Berber villages of Imouzzer du Kandar; Ifrane, a fairy-tale town unlike any other in Morocco with white-walled French-style villas with steep red roofs and gables. As the altitude increases, we come to a bare, arid, sandy plateau with another range of mountains in the distance. We arrive in  Arfoud, a city known as "the Door to the Desert."

Mint tea at the hotel

We stay in the Kasbah Hotel Xaluca which was built with adobes, the traditional Moroccan building bricks, and it is a perfect place to relax and enjoy the moment. It combines tradition with modern amenities and is a fantastic place, situated among the dunes and palms. After dinner at the hotel we sit by the pool and enjoy some local music before retiring for the night.

Our room at Kasbah Hotel Xaluca

Fes

April 24 Fes. 

Walking in the narrow alleys in Fes El Bali

Today we did a walking tour of Fes El Bali, the extraordinary medieval walled city. Once inside the gates of this great spectacle, we saw an entirely different view of life in Morocco. In contrast to the well-planned Ville Nouvelle of Fes, the old city is a labyrinth of alleys and lanes lined with shops, mosques, homes and schools. In 1980 UNESCO designated the medina a World Heritage Site.

Lemons and olives

Our guide took us to the medina to view the market shops, or suks. Everything from food to clothing and handicrafts of all types are for sale and bargaining. We see the famous fabric dying area with the brightly coloured cloth hanging to dry and the leather tanning.

Leather Dying

We visit the Royal Palace, several mosques, theological schools, and shops where we can see craftsmen tailoring their work. We also walk through the jewish neighborhood. It is an amazing look into the life of the Moroccan city dweller where little has changed over the centuries.

Donkeys still bring in goods to Fes El Bali