19 January 2008

Holiday travels - Madrid, Morocco, Algarve


As anyway we wanted to go somewhere on holiday also outside Portugal, and as we were as close as ever from Africa, we thought that Morocco would be a good start. We found a really cheap flight to Marrakesh from Madrid, so we also visited the Spanish capital.
The itinerary would be: Lisbon-Madrid-Marrakesh-Casablanca-Rabat-Fés-Tanger-crossing the Gibraltar by ferry-Algarve (Portugal) via Spain.

Madrid

We left from Lisbon airport at the same time with David, a friend of Ovidiu's from Romania that came here for a conference for a few days.

In Lisbon airport, us and David
We stayed 2 days in Madrid, in which we tried to visit as much as possible. Our favourite Spanish guy, Alberto, helped us with the accomodation, we stayed one night at his ex flatmates - great people...one of them was Brazilian and had a grandfather from Tighina, he showed us his birth certificate written in Romanian :-).

At our hosts in Madrid :-)...here, us and the Greek girl
I liked Madrid...a city which is alive, with many things to see! Places where we´ve been:

A quiet square

At the statue of Don Quijote de la Mancha (under the donkey: 2 crazy Americans)

In the back - Sabatini Gardens

In the Sabatini Gardens - in the back, Palacio Real (the Royal Palace)

In the evening, you can feel even more the great atmosphere. Madrid is a city that doesn´t sleep, being much more animated than Lisbon until late night - here is a pair dancing tango
A nice church - nearby someone was playing the guitar so beautifully, that was creating an incredible atmosphere
The church, seen from the back

Calle Mayor, an important avenue of Madrid

Calle Mayor is leading to Plaza Mayor - the most known and full of tourists square of Madrid

Full of terraces

Even with some of "our" guys that were singing in front of the terraces - as we´re in Spain (you can hear Romanian from 5 in 5 minutes) - and btw, they were singing pretty well ;)

At a terrace in Plaza Mayor

Puerta del Sol, the zero kilometre of Spain
In the next morning, in front of Santiago Bernabeu, the stadium of Real Madrid

Las Ventas arena - the most famous of Spain

The statue of a bull-fighter

The wall that is surrounding a part of the arena

Las Ventas

The place of women

With the tourists group that we entered


:D

Puerta de Alcalá

Palacio de Cristal, in "Parque de Buen Retiro"

In "Parque de Buen Retiro"

In the same park

At the right, The Palace of Communications

Metrópolis building
Finally in the airport again, but this time with the destination Marrakesh :-)
Marrakesh
In 3 hours we arrived to Marrakesh, the passports check followed, thing of which we got unused to lately, but ok..We bought a few thousands of Dirhams (1 euro~11DHM) from the exchange from the airport, and we went out to catch a cab..

Then the fun began...there were plenty of cabs waiting for the tourists, but none with reasonable prices. They could afford to take advantage, as Marrakesh is a bit far from the airport, and even if it was just 8 PM, there weren´t any buses to the city. Of course that we tried to negociate, and we found another 2 girls - an Irish and a Spanish - with whom to share the cab. But none of the taxi drivers would of lower the price. They were asking 150 dirhams~15 euros for the 3 km to the city...what we could get was 140 dirhams for 4 persons..it was the most expensive service we paid in all the travel in Morocco :D.

At least the taxi driver "helped" us (always for money) to find a reasonable hotel, as we didn´t reserve nothing in advance (afterwards we were confirmed that you can find a better accomodation on spot, than reserving on internet). From the first evening we realised that we were in another world, without rules, very agitated, with cars, a lot of motorcycles and people that want to "help" you at each step..
After we had a bit of rest, we headed towards the main square Djemaa el Fna, to see what is around and also to have something for dinner..The impression that I had was that of a "jungle", of a place with no rules, when everyone is doing what they want. It was almost an adventure to cross the street, being a lot of motorcycles moving around chaotically, there weren´t many zebras, and even if there were, noone was respecting them..The Moroccans, as they see that you´re a foreigner, call you to buy from them, more or less insistent, in other words, everything they do is for money, and this we´ll feel all around Morocco.

When we were there it was the Ramadan, the big Muslim holiday, and as it´s forbidden to eat during the day, in the night there was so much animation, everybody was on the streets, the square was full, actually it was like in a normal day outside Ramadan. We got to Djemaa el Fna, and we sat at one of the many places where you could eat something traditional. You could find meet, but more because of the tourists. We ate some little sausages with Moroccan bread, with a mixed salad and with the habitual tomato sauce. Many Moroccans were eating only the bread with the sauce.


The first evening - at dinner in Djemaa el Fna
Koutoubia mosque

The next day we came again in the square, to see also the atmosphere during the day..

Djemaa el Fna

In the back, Koutoubia mosque

We found a reasonable restaurant where we ate several times (they also had a great shaorma)

At lunch

A very crowded street near the square

We started to visit some of the most important atractions of Marrakesh: El Badi Palace, Bahia Palace, the Saadian tombs, the Souks (traditional market), Marrakesh museum, Almoravid Koubba.
In El Badi Palace

The minbar of Koutoubia mosque, now on exhibition at El Badi Palace

View over Marrakesh from the top of the palace

El Badi

Everything for sale on the streets of Marrakesh; from here I bought a natural parfume (solid)

The entrance in Bahia palace

In the palace


A very interesting architecture


Moroccan sculptor

The Saadian tombs


At the Saadian tombs

A gate in Marrakesh

STOP

This is just one, but we saw a lot of Romanian traditional cars Dacia

In Marrakesh museum

Moroccan saddle

Traditional Moroccan coat

Almoravid Koubba - the only remaining example of Almoravid architecture in Marrakesh

The cupola

In the Souks, a traditional market - the one in Marrakech is the largest of Morocco


On the "labyrintic" streets of the Souks

On the bus, leaving behind Marrakesh, chating with Jamal, a young Moroccan teacher

On the way to Casablanca

Urika Valley, the Atlas mountains

In one of the days that we were in Marrakesh, we thought to go also to Urika Valley, in the Atlas mountains - it was just at 60 km from the city.

We took the bus, it was very cheap, 5 dirhams~50 cents :-). It was a bit crowded, we had to stand half of the way...but it didn´t matter anyway..

In the bus, with the Moroccans

continuing the way by taxi ("grand taxi" how they use to say)

Carpets for sale on the road

On the way to Urika


We arrived, took a guide and started to climb to the Atlas mountains

A natural refridgerator in the mountains


There were a lot of cascades

In the Atlas mountains


Atlas mountains


Our guide, Mohamed

Getting down


In the back a small village from the valley






Casablanca

From Marrakesh we headed to Casablanca by bus (means of transportation that for sure we won´t use in Morocco for long distances :D), to see the biggest mosque of Africa. We got there in the evening, around 7.

Hassan II mosque - the biggest in Africa, second in the world after the mosque from Mecca





Sunset in Casablanca

Apart from the mosque, in Casablanca there isn´t almost nothing else to see. It´s not a beautiful city, just that it´s at the Atlantic.
More pictures from Casablanca

Rabat
In the same evening, after we stayed a little at the mosque in Casablanca, we went further to the capital Rabat. This time by train, a more inspired choice. The train was looking quite good, even better that the second class trains from Romania :P, but it doesn´t mean that they are all like that :D.

Finally in the capital we met more civilized people.. surprisingly they were not picking up on you, to sell I don´t know what or to recommend you I don´t know what hotel, and they wouldn´t ask for money for any information they give. Finally, because we were already sick of that style..we just wanted to walk on the street without being asked nothing, not having to keep on saying as convincing as possible "non merçi, non merçi".
In the modern part of Rabat

Public garden

Near the medina


The capital is also at the ocean

Hassan Tower, one of the capital´s attractions


The entrance in the Mausoleum of Mohammed V

As we got in we were forcedly "received" by a "guide touristique", which took us a bit unprepared to say that "non merçi"...the technique that they use is: first to talk to you; the main question is "where are you from?", if you answer this, they almost caught you. Then they ask what language do you speak, and they start to tell you what they know about your country, so that it would be more probable that you´ll start to talk to them. Obviously afterwards is the negociation..This guy from the mausoleum wanted at the beginning 10 euros /person, we said that we give him 1 euro each. Even that was too much, but it was a bit difficult and late to get rid of him...so we began "the tour". He told us nothing new, we informed ourselves before coming...He was starting to piss me off with his cheap explanations (actually not even cheap :)) ), and we thought that before getting rid of him, at least use him at something useful, to take us some pictures :D. In the meantime he told us of course what he knew about Romania - usual stuff: Hagi, Nadia Comaneci...and another one that I really didn´t know :)).. "Romania-Morocco friends"..at least we laught a little after this..

In the interior - there is permanently a Coran reader

The guards in front of the mausoleum

The mausoleum of Mohammed V - another attraction of Rabat

One of the pictures taken by the "touristic guide" :))

Tanger and Gibraltar
The next was Tanger, the last Moroccan city that we visit...then, back to the civilization :D...I was already missing Europe :-).
When we finally got there it was already evening. We quickly found a hotel, and then we went out in the medina. I could feel a difference from the other cities that we´ve been to in Morocco...there was a more western atmosphere, being so close to Europe, and them being used to have many Spanish tourists, and not only. So many Moroccans could speak a little Spanish, or even Italian...eh, anything, only to make more money out of it.
In the center of Tanger there is a pretty nice square, with a fountain, with people walking around...a Plaza Mayor of Tanger :-). We stopped to eat something at a terrace with the view at the square; we had a nice time there.

Plaza Mayor of Tanger

In the port

In the next morning we hanged a bit more around the city, we also went to the port to buy tickets - we´ll cross Gibraltar to Spain by ferry; it was a really reasonable price..
In the ferry

Like it´s written on the ferry, in 35 min we were in Tarifa, Spain. Finally EUROPE!! :D
We took the bus to Algeciras. There we couldn´t find any train or bus to move on, so we had to look for a hostel. We found a nice and cheap one. The next day we took the bus to Sevilla, via Cádiz.
In Sevilla we just saw from the bus Giralda church (the former mosque), the sister of the unfinished mosque from Rabat. We didn´t have either tim eor mood to visit Sevilla, so we went further. There we found a direct bus to Lagos, Portugal and we didn´t even have to wait much until we left.

Lagos
We arrived in Lagos in the evening and started to look for accommodation...it lasted a bit more than usual, but finally we found something ok.
The next day, it was a great weather, hot, sunny, so we went to the beach. I think that Algarve is the only place in Portugal where they might speak to you from the beginning in English. There are so many English tourists, that - honestly - the the few days that we stayed there, I had got sick of so much British accent around :D




Another "cheese castle" :D





Lagos in the night

We had a great time in Lagos...
More pictures from Lagos
Once we got to Portugal, after a week of speaking French in Morocco, I realized that I started to forget Portuguese...simple expressions, that I frequently used before, and heard even more often, now they were more difficult to find and match :D. Not a problem, in some days I´ll get use to it again...even I was surprised of myself when instead of saying "obrigada", I wanted to say "merçi"...and there where only 5 days that we stayed in Morocco :D.

Sagres and Cape of St. Vicent
In the next day we went to Sagres, the origin place of the Portuguese beer Sagres, where there is a lot of wind and many dragon flies - at least when we were there there were to many ..


Sagres

A former boat :-)

It´s a very nice resort, quiet, with less tourists than Lagos. Because of the wind the temperature was lower than in the other resort, I was a bit cold, cause I was in some very short pants :D.


Strong and a bit cold wind :D

We went also to the cape of St. Vincent, the last piece of land of South-western Europe. Here - a strong wind, more than in Sagres, that was alsmost taking you off of the ground :D. Just stayed there a little, unfortunately the lighthouse couldn´t be visited inside, it was closed from some time for the public.

The lighthouse from Cabo de São Vicente

It´s the wind :D..



Like that it was with the wind..

After all these...final destination - Lisbon :-). It was great this vacation, with some adventures in certain places, much more amuzing now when I remember :D.

posted by Diana @ 23:25 Comments: 0