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Nice, France

Every trip has a ‘worst night ever’ experience, this was ours. Dave has been up since 3am sick in Morocco with food or water poisoning. To ensure he experienced the wrath of his 24 hour bug, by the time our flight landed and we arrived to our hotel it was 3am in France. I’m unsure what was more frustrating, a taxi from airport to hotel being $100, or just missing the once every 2 hour bus and waiting in the cold for the next one. Oh I know what’s worse; finally arriving to Marseille city by bus at 3am and then realising there’s no taxis so we have to walk to the hotel, to be then standing outside a locked ’24hour’ hotel in a dark alleyway and have 5 dodgy boys hanging around us until enough shaking on the door woke the hotel owner up in his pjs, who then proceeded to shout at us in French. I’m glad he understood the concept of a 24 hour hotel for $75!
24 hours of hell didn’t seem long enough so we stretched it out to 36 hours. I think the conversations we had with the rail ticket office, the hotel reception the next morning and the post office to send a parcel back home ($150) would have been better with a brick wall. At least that way we wouldn’t have been shouted at in French by all those listed above. Marseille, farewell to you!

A new city and new day. Regardless of what Nice is like as a city, the people are so welcoming and friendly…. and nice (ha ha, had to say it!). They realise a smile goes a long way. The French in the north weren’t familiar with what the English call the French Riviera. They know it as Côte d’Azur.
A few weeks ago we met a couple of backpackers who looked at us strangely when we said we’re backpackers that have never stayed in a backpackers dorm room. After three days in Nice we’re loving the hostels. I love the fact there’s cooking facilities and they offer a free wine and nibbles evening.

Our first day trip from Nice was to Cannes. Although no signs of a film festival, it does have a great feeling about it. Out of the 5 beaches we found along the French Riviera, the water was the clearest in Cannes. Overall the Mediterranean waters have been the clearest I’ve ever seen in my life. Unlike Cannes’s sandy beaches, Nice’s beach has pebbles. We couldn’t justify the $30 to hire a bed so we lay on those hard pebbles. We paid the price though, with red round pebble marks all over our backs. The most beautiful of the beaches was Ville France, about two train stops from Nice. No Riviera trip would be complete without a trip to the ever so glamorous Monte Carlo. We had many people tell us it’s overrated, and that is probably the case, however the day we went was the start of the super yacht show. I have never seen so many 4 and 5 storey floating mansions in one spot in my life. I imagine the way we felt being surrounded by people who live their life in a different world would be similar to a refugee coming to Australia. It’s putting things into perspective. The wealth of those people is beyond comprehension. Of course the boats that were parked in and around the marina have owners who drive the fanciest cars we have ever seen. There were no stock standard Porches, Lamborghini or Bentleys, they were the models that you see on the movies not in real life. I have never in my life seen so much money in such a small space. With no airport, therefore no private planes allowed in Monaco, the only way the rich and famous can access Monaco from the sky is by private helicopter. During the week there’s only an interval of 20min between flights. The ocean is a car parking lot for super yachts with helicopter pads. The actual car parks have enough wealth to solve a third world country’s poverty issues.
Monaco is the world’s second smallest country at only 2km sq. It’s known for the Monaco Grand Prix and that famous casino which had 3 Bond films shot there. The 32,000 citizens of Monaco are not allowed to gamble, or even visit the casino but they do have a tax free lifestyle.
Dave was in awe as he got to walk around the Grand Turismo track. It was weird that he knew the streets and where to go without looking at the GPS. The one other thing about Monte Carlo that’s worth a mention is the McDonalds. The maccas is 3 floors up, waterfront views and inside only. BUT there is no advertising to even know its a McDonalds, not even one sign will indicate what it is from the outside. See picture below

On our newly created bucket list is a sailing trip on the Med. It’s such a beautiful place in the world. I can only imagine how magnificent it would be from the water. It’s free to write lists and dream!

Dave is still extremely ill from Morocco (4 days ago), so he could only manage to be out and about for a few hours each day. Unfortunately we didn’t see as much as we’d have liked but I think that’s what happens when you go go go everyday without a break. I say that as in the next 48 hours we have 16 hours on 8 trains. Oh well, onwards and upwards!

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Cannes, France

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Marseille, France

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Tangier, Morocco

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Chefchaouen, Morocco

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Fes, Morocco

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step

There’s something about that phrase or mindset that appeals to me as I reflect back on an event that happened to me a few years ago. We were with my brother in Lombok and I distinctly remember that feeling of being in a Moslem country, and how uncomfortable I felt hearing the call to prayer blaring from the mosques. To put it frankly, you couldn’t have got me off that island fast enough. Skipping forward a few years and we are here in Europe, in our comfort zone, doing the touristy thing and feeling a little ‘ho hum’. Within a few weeks of the ‘western-ness’, we were craving a culture shakeup and some diversity that we’d came to enjoy in countries like India and Namibia. When I suggested Morocco for a few days, Dave reminded me of the events of a few years back, in that Moslem country. As soon as we arrived here in Morocco I knew I wasn’t that same person anymore.

Five nights in Morocco ‘had’ to be split up into 3 towns. It would have been far too relaxing to do it any on other way. Based on the advice from a worldly traveller, we opted for avoiding the more touristic places, such as Casablanca and Marrakech and have gone with Fez, Chefchaouen, and Tangier.

First was Fez, Morocco’s third biggest city and a 2 hour flight out of Europe and into Northern Africa. Our accommodation in Fez was in a riad which is a traditional Moroccan house or palace with an interior garden or courtyard. Many riads are now used for people to stay in. Ours had 6 individually decorated Moroccan style ceramic tiled rooms. A fully dressed Muslim woman served us welcome green tea with mint leaves and a moroccan tagine on floor cushions. A tagine is a clay or ceramic pot, which is what the stew or meat (or brain) is cooked in.
As I write this, Im sitting on the roof of the riad, over looking Morocco’s oldest imperial city (known as the medina) with arid landscape just beyond that. It’s still and quiet, apart from the laughs of children coming home from school and the call to prayer from the minarets. Minarets are tall lighthouse looking buildings from which the call to prayer is made. Using a microphone the call to prayer is issued five times each day: dawn, noon, mid-afternoon, sunset, and night, all over Morocco. Here in Fez, there are 300 of these minarets so you can imagine this cacophony of sound. It’s rather amazing and something you get used to hearing, even at 5:30am.
What Fez is famous for, apart from the Fez hat, is it’s medina (old city) and that it is considered to be the world’s largest car free city. When I mean old it’s 789-859AD and has the world’s oldest university. Within the walls of this city are 9,000 alleyways which make up the medina. Some are as narrow as 60cm and there will be the odd one as wide as 5metres. Too narrow for cars so horses, donkeys and carts are normal form of transportation. It’s quite literally a maze of residences and souks, which are North African markets. The outer edges are good enough for tourists to get a sense of it all but we wanted to see what tourists don’t see, so we hired a local guide for $30. What I love most is that there are different souks for different purposes, and they are used by the 150,000 locals for eating, living and buying their traditional Islamic dress and home ware. While walking through the maze of souks it felt as if we’d gone back centuries. To name a few souks:
– The food souk / markets; where you buy uncooked chicken for dinner. They’ll butcher the live chicken right there in front of you and the pen full of the chicken’s mates. In between spices and buckets of olives are camel heads hanging next to camel meat and about 20 varieties of fish being butchered.
-The tanneries; where you can literally see or smell your leather jacket or bag being made. It’s actually the oldest tannery in the world and the site hasn’t changed since the 11th century. The leather retail shop has a viewing platform which overlooks the process where cows become wallets. The hides are brought in from the butchers, then workers stand in stone vessels arranged like honeycombs, which are filled with different cleaning agents and dyes. To complete the process, the hide is laid to dry on the roofs of the medina. A very, very labour intensive process with no machinery. Did I mention the smell??? The little mint leaf they give you upon arrival wouldn’t even work if it was taped to the inside of your nostrils.
-The bakers; where locals can buy pre made bread or bring their dough to the communal wood burning ovens. Bread is a huge part of the Moroccan diet.
– There’s also carvers, carpenters, carpet makers and silverware souks. We purchased a tea set from two brothers as this is very much part of Moroccan culture. So for those reading this, be prepared to be served tea from our new Moroccan tea set, as it’s going to be flipping heavy (expensive) to post back.

From Fez, Chefchaouen is about 5 hours on a local bus. For a few years there, Morocco was officially named the single biggest supplier of hashish with most of it from around Chefchaouen. Finding this out the day before arriving here I wasn’t very excited about visiting another Amsterdam. (I lost the paper scissors rock war with Dave, otherwise we would have forfeited our prepaid accommodation and gone instead to the Sahara desert, only a 14 hour drive away). However, I was pleasantly surprised when arriving, to find it didn’t look or feel like that in any way, or at least in the medina where we were staying. I knew we would have been told to come here for good reason, and that reason is the medina is beautifully blue! What makes this old city of 40,000 so picturesque is its setting against the dramatic backdrop of the Rif Mountains and it is filled with white-washed homes with distinctive powder-blue accents. Similar to Fez, it also has a car free Medina (old town) within ‘castle walls’, but this one is smaller and far more laid back. I didn’t really feel comfortable getting lost in Fez’s medina but here it was a lot of fun exploring the alleyways that are painted blue, as are the doors and some of the ground. It was painted blue by the Jewish refugees who lived there during the 1930’s, and is blue as a reminder of “God’s power above”. Nowadays it’s a stronger Muslim presence but they have continued the tradition and regularly paint their houses blue.

As always, when hearing an English speaking person, we strike up a conversation. I think of how that would have sounded being back in Brisbane and asking a random English speaker to have dinner with us, but that is exactly what happens when travelling. We have dinner with a different traveller a few times a week. Upon our first meal in Chefchouen, we met Michelle, an American who is volunteering in the south of Morocco. We were pleased to bump into her again the following morning and spent the whole day together. Apart from spending time with a fantastic woman, we were lucky enough to learn more about the country and its culture from someone who has lived here for 2 years and speaks Arabic. We explored the city, climbed a bit of the Rif mountain range and had $4 meals and $1 mint tea all day long. Our Chefchaouen purchase was from an artisan. A beautiful woollen blanket in the colour of the city – blue, and for only 180 dirhams or about $30!

From Chefchaouen it was 4 long hours on the local bus until we arrived in our final Moroccan destination, Tangier. Bit of a close call with a car that slammed into our bus on the side of a cliff but we arrived safely in the most touristy city yet. Tangier is the northern point of Morocco and Africa. When my family were in southern Spain, Gibraltar 14 years ago, I distinctly remember seeing Africa from the Spanish side. It’s a pretty cool feeling seeing Spain from this side all those years later.
As Tangier is pretty touristy, the medina wasn’t as quaint as the last two towns. We don’t buy souvenirs in many towns but Morocco has some great, cheap stuff. To complete our Moroccan tea set we bought a 50 year old tea tray from a lovely man with
an antique shop.
As a substitute for the Sahara camel trip, I took my camel ride along the beach of Tangier. I stood out like a tourist, weaving in between people playing on Tangier’s dirty beach. As dorky as I looked, I had a lot of fun and it was the highlight of Tangier. I’m glad we are only staying one night here, it’s very modern and touristy, very different from the culture of Fez and Chefchaouen.

It’s hard to find countries that are so completely different from one to the next, but Morocco has been just that. Although we are in Africa, it very much feels like a middle eastern country. I particularly liked the tolerance between beliefs and the fact locals speak about 6 languages. In the towns we visited it’s rare to see women not in headscarves and about 60% men are in djellabas, pointy leather slippers and little islamic hats. My view on headscarves has changed since travelling here. I see that we are all the same, we just choose to wear different things. It’s not very touristy here, so us white fellas stuck out like sore thumbs but as long as we dressed respectfully, we were welcomed openly to their country. Hopefully when Islamic people travel they receive the same respect as we have received here. Just shows the importance of not stereotyping, otherwise we wouldn’t have had such a wonderful week here. My other take away from our 5 nights in Morocco is never, ever being able to buy new leather goods again without smelling or imagining the smell of a tannery!

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Barcelona, Spain

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Madrid, Spain

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Lisbon, Portugal

This week feels like a week in the Amazing Race. After leaving France, we had 8 nights to see 4 cities spread across 2, or maybe 4, countries depending on the way you look at it. The time limit was set because we could get cheap flights to Morocco the following week. With that came sacrifices to the quality of travel. We spent most of the week on trains, running to trains or waiting at train stations.
Looking retrospectively at the week that was, I think the biggest thing we have taken away from this experience from a political perspective is ‘the Spanish situation’. If you look at both Spain and Portugal, they are doing pretty terribly economically. The unemployment rate in Portugal is 42% and Spain’s is a bit lower but the youth unemployment is at 52%. For the first time, the Spanish population is decreasing not increasing, as people are leaving for stable European countries. What I didn’t know is that Spain is made up of autonomous regions and”nationalities”. So, in this week we visited 3 cities in Spain but only 1 of them actually calls themself Spanish. San Sebastián is part of Basque Country and Barcelona is part of Catalonia. 70% of Catalonians want to leave the Euro as they’d be better off leaving the dire straits Spain is in. It was only the other day 500,000 Catalan demonstrators linked arms to form a 250-mile human chain to push for independence.Obviously there is no way the Spanish government would approve the independence of Catalonia – if they did Spain would quite literally be up **** creek. The reason I mention it is, even from a tourist’s perspective, when staying in San Sebastian but particularly Barcelona, they are passionately not Spanish, including speaking their own language. It wasn’t like this a few years back but it’s getting more predominant nowadays.

With that heavy prelude complete, here’s the week that was:

-24 hours in SAN SEBASTIAN – ‘Spain’s culinary capital’
Our departure from France was delayed due to a nationwide public transport strike, so getting to the northern coast of Spain made for a challenge. Arriving 7 hours late meant we were left with less time to explore this little coastal town. It’s definitely a foodies destination with the highest concentration of Michelin starred restaurants per capita than anywhere in the world. Of course their famous pincho or pintxo bars, often referred to as tapas bars, were to us very interesting as we eat ‘tapas’ back home and see that the word tapas is thrown around very loosely. We didn’t actually find out what a true tapa was until days later in Madrid. Without getting hung up on the words, this is what we experienced in these unique bars. Firstly we chose a less populated bar to be able to understand the concept of how to eat and order pincho/pintxos (spelt differently depending if you’re Spanish or speak the local language of Basque). Each bar has a wide variety of about 30 different plates of hot and cold, Spanish inspired pincho snacks. It’s all displayed on the bar top and you just get a plate and help yourself to all the different little snacks, combining them to make a full meal. They are usually ‘spiked’ with a skewer or toothpick, often to a piece of bread. So with the concept understood we headed to a jam packed bar and started helping ourselves to the most wonderful gourmet food we could get our hands on.
The following day, Dave headed to the Spanish coastline for a long overdue surf in the cool 18 degree water. The beach along from the surf beach is considered to be one of the best beaches in Europe. Unfortunately we couldn’t go swimming as we had to head straight from the beach to the overnight train. Without fail every overnight train has had a complementary drunk to make the 13hrs more painful than it already is. From San Sebastián, Spain, to Lisbon Portugal we suffered the sounds of **** continuously waffling from someone’s mouth. At times, I wished we’d paid the $150 for a sleeper-berth rather than the $20 for two seats in with the ferals.

-37 hours in LISBON, Portugal – ‘the more you look, the more you see’.
Off the train, backpacks down, out the door within 5 minutes to join up with a group of Lisboeta friends showing tourists around their city. It’s a strange city. It doesn’t quite ‘fit’ together. A mismatch of architecture, from Phoenician to medieval, Greek to Roman but mostly Arab influenced. Arabs love their tiles as the exterior of the buildings and tiny, tiny cobblestones on all the streets show. To give a bit of context to this mismatch, the city was rebuilt after the world’s third most destructive earthquake. On a public holiday in 1755, 85% of the buildings were destroyed and 80% of the population was killed either by the quake itself, the fire caused from the candles burning in the wooden houses, or the tsunami that followed. Our favourite area in Lisbon wasn’t destroyed by the quake. A 1,300 year old Arab Moorish quarter named Alfama. It felt like a country village right in the heart of Lisbon. A little old lady popped her head out of her window and sold us sour cherry liqueur, ginjinha for $1. Very cool place if you want to feel as if you’ve stepped back in time.
As if the town of Lisbon couldn’t get any better, 30 minutes away is a coastline of endless beaches. A perfect way to end our short stay here. As we watched people on these picturesque beaches while polishing off 2 litres of sangria, we both wished our type of travel wasn’t so rushed. Portugal, more particularly Lisbon, was a place we fell in love with. Always a continuation of music, endless accordionists setting the mood. This is a place that has so much to uncover, but you really have to look for it.

“What should be but isn’t fact #741: As butter chicken isn’t popular in India and sweet and sour isn’t in China…well neither is peri peri chicken in Portugal, and no Nando’s or Oporto to be seen. But, chupa chupas (translating to licky lick) which are from Barcelona, can be found in Barcelona!”

-23 hours in MADRID – ‘the heart and soul of the tapas’
Fortunately, last night’s overnight train to Madrid didn’t have any drunks so we managed to get some shut eye. We throughly appreciated this because as soon as we were off the train we were straight on another tour. Madrid didn’t have that wow factor. It’s just a city. There’s alway stuff to be uncovered though, like buying biscuits from a hidden nunnery, where the nuns behind a wooden turning circle, speak only Spanish. One thing that did grab our attention, was the opportunity to further investigate tapas on a ‘tapas tour’. I think the key to what makes a tapa a tapa, is it’s a complementary snack provided when a drink is purchased, as opposed to a pincho which is always ordered and paid for independently from the drinks. It was invented in the 13th century, when the farmers of this area could only afford either a drink OR food. Obviously they chose drink so when returning to work they were pretty useless to their bosses, therefore a law was imposed to serve a complementary tapa. It was the night out we needed, chatting for hours with like minded strangers over copious amounts of ‘free’ tapas and some sangria or spanish summer wine.

-49 hours in BARCELONA – ‘something for everyone’
With 2 minutes to spare and a hell of a lot of luck we made our train out of Madrid bound for Barcelona by lunchtime. Barcelona, in Catalonia country, is a fantastic city. Very multicultural and tolerant. This is a city where they turned the city around to face the Mediterranean for the Olympics. They relocated Europe’s biggest port to make way for a 4km beach and planted 200,000 palm trees for the event. They are so passionate here about not being Spanish that they have their own Catalan Christmas tradition that doesn’t involve Santa but does involve the ‘Catalan Nativity Little *******’ mascot. It’s about a little statue taking a number 2. They say it’s about ‘giving back’. So at Christmas the kids whack a log and it “***** out lollies”. (Quoted). The log even has a face.

All Barcelona blogs have to mention two things:
1) Gaudi
. I would say we are ignorant travellers, never heard of the bloke. But I tell you as you wander the city, regardless if you have an interest in architecture or not, this guy’s work sticks out like a sore thumb. As the “inventor of modernism” buildings have chimneys with mosaic fruit and other bits and bobs on the roof. The most famous of his buildings is the Sagrada Família church. It was a shame he died getting hit by a tram.
2) The 1970’s flamenco show at Tablao was by far the best show I have ever, ever seen. Think of the passion associated with the guy who holds the red flag before a bull race and whips it down. That fire is displayed in a flamenco show through the musical instruments, the voice of a singer and the extraordinary talent of tap dancing professionals. This emotionally moving style of dance exudes expression and says so much about Spain and its spirit. After the show a few of us went for tapas and sangria. Different cities have different variations on pinchos or tapas. People from Madrid seem to be the ones who are the most passionate about it being correctly understood. As it originated from there, I’ll go with that. What is similar about it though, is the purpose. It’s to designed to encourage conversation because people are not so focused upon eating an entire meal that is set before them.

Unfortunately in this blog I don’t think I have really captured the life and energy, yet contradiction that is Barcelona. I say that after doing a ‘behind the tourist scenes tour’ look at the city just a few hours before departing and publishing this blog. I feel as if I have left with so many unanswered questions.

I’ll reflect back on this week in Portugal and Spain with fond memories of food, sangria and the passionate locals we have met along the way. Over the last week we have also met a lot of travellers in bars, on tours, in restaurants and on trains. We love the instant bond you create yet, their names are unknown, or if you find out, it’s when saying goodbye after hours of conversation. Over the past four months we have met so many of these like minded people who are now following this blog and I just want to say thank you for making our stay in those cities so much more personable.

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San Sebastián – Donostia, Spain

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