Morocco

Despite Mother Nature's serious attempt to thwart our travel plans, we managed to make it to Marrakech with no holdups whatsoever... a bit of a relief really, as the preceding day had been full of nervous phone calls to airlines, airports and rail companies. The plus side of the 'wintry blast' was an incredible view as we took off over London - definitely worth everyone else's inconvenience, I'd say!

The hotel was something quite special - the ceiling was hand painted in an ornate design, there were two four-poster beds, a balcony and harem-style couch... essentially, it was everything you thing Marrakech will be like. Good start.
Our first morning we walked about 25 min from our hotel in the new town to the Medina, mostly to visit the Information Centre... which was closed. Helpful. We weren't overly surprised as the guidebooks do all say that hotel staff are a lot more informative than the centres, so it wasn't too much of a spanner in the works. We went past Katoubiya Mosque, the tallest building in the city (in fact, there are laws which mean nothing near it can be taller than 3 stories, and buildings in the new city cannot be higher than it, so the view from the top is reserved for Muslims, as us infidels aren't allowed in mosques in Morocco - never mind, we had our own cunning plan for this - more about that later).
After lunch, we had a quick wander around Jamaa El Fna (the main square) and into the souks, after being stern with ourselves that we would NOT be buying anything today, no matter how guilty the vendors made us feel... it worked and we walked out unscathed (but eyeing up a few shiny things). It was here that we made a small mistake... pausing. Yes, you might think stopping briefly is a perfectly legitimate action whilst taking in a new city, but it isn't. Not in the main square anyway, as we found out when pounced on by a snake charmer who was anything but. Oh he was all smiles as he draped one of the reptiles around Kent's neck (I had the good sense to step back) and another on his head (eeew), then grabbed our camera so he could take a photo of us... but the smile soon stopped as we tried to leave without giving him the equivalent of the GDP of a developing nation. Kent managed to placate him with the equivalent of 20p, but I was concerned for a while there that we weren't getting the camera back...


The next day we stayed a bit closer to home and walked to the Majorelle Gardens, which are/were owned by Yves Saint Laurent. It's in the thick of the city, next to a busy road, but the high walls make it feel really quite peaceful and the gardens themselves are beautiful, with lots of exotic, err, things (not sure what it all was, but pretty all the same) and bright pots and walls.
The forecast for the next day was a bit bleak, so we opted for a bus trip to the Ourika Valley, which is in the Atlas Mountains - the other side of which is the Sahara Desert. [Eryn has left the building] The twelve year old boy that was to be the guide showed up with his people mover, fashionably late. And we were off, picking up two french women on the way. It was about 80kms to the top of the road. Most of that through very poor-looking flat semi-desert with the occasional shop selling either dead animals, of various kinds, with heads and legs on; or what some would call food shops, that were all seduced by coca-cola's offer of free shop painting, in a pretty red colour. After 40kms of passing horse and carts, dodging old men on motorbikes, being passed by tossers in Mercedes and honking furiously at all of them and more, we started to climb into the valley. At some points the road was breaking up a bit and at others the rivers we were working through had a lot of cars in them.
We stoped at a "genuine" Berber house and had a look at the way they lived and their facilities: the old water powered mill and the cooking and sleeping facilities. We also stopped further up at an Argan oil co-operative store and production unit. Argan is a type of plant that does not grow anywhere but southern Morroco. They make it into both a food oil and skin oil. We didn't buy any.
As the SNOW [in Africa] got heavier we stopped at one of the cute little bridges to take some photos. When we got to the top we were not keen for the three hour round trip walk to the waterfall so we headed home via another carpet store. But there was nothing as good as the Turkish carpet we had, so, much to the salesman's consternation, we bought nothing.
The next day we headed to the port town of Essouira. "Two hours" the bus guy said, only four hours 40min later we were there. Not the nicest town in the wet but we had a reasonable look around the port, bastion, markets and a museum. No doubt on a very nice summer day would have been very nice. Was getting home going to be the smooth two hours it should have been? No. Five hours later.
Sunday, God's day, the aforementioned infidels God's day. If Eryn hadn't been convinced that this is a very dirty stinky city yet, she was going to be by the end of the day. We had a walk through and around town. Quite a lot of walking for the day. We headed into town to have a look around before heading through to the tanneries on the other side of the Medina. Having walked around for about an hour and then popping out of the centre in the same place we went in, oops, we followed the city walls around it to get to the tanneries. The tanneries is the traditional place all the animal skins are tanned the natural way. In piss and bird shit. It smelt a treat. Was a very interesting process. Sing it with me.... You put the camel skins in the shit; you take the camel skins out; You put the camel skins in the piss; you take the camel skins out; You put the camel skins in the bleach; you take the camel skins out; scrape off all the meat; that's why it smells so sweet.
We had a look around two and into the shop with all the made and dyed leather goods. But we didn't buy anything, were getting good.
Also went around to the old Badii Place massive old palace built over 25 years. Was said to be one of the most luxurious and best decorated in the world at the time. Only lived in for 80 years. It is said to have taken 12 years to get all the good stuff, gold, tiles and ornaments out when the new emperor was demolishing it. Still in good enough state to get a decent view over town and see how huge it would have once been.
Last full day. Eryn was really keen to walk away from town up some hill at the back of town. And even though the guys at the hotel said it was dangerous Eryn just said "nah, it will be fine, aggressive drunk Africans nor scorpion and snake sandwiches bother me, lets go". So I dutifully followed. We headed about 25 minutes walk away from town towards some hills with old middle age city walls on them. Then up we went, took some photos and back down the other side. Fearlessly beating a path through the drunk Africans, mercilessly slaughtering hordes of snakes and inciting internal warfare amongst the ranks of scorpions that amasses to meet our arrival.
Had another wander around town and bought a few things. Had our fifth dinner of chippie sandwiches. That night was the first we went out to the evening market in the Jamaa. Every night dozens of dinner restaurants set up shop in the square and staff pester the money out of all and sundry walking past.
And that was much as it went down in Africa.

Cheers,
Kent... and Eryn who doesn't know this is up yet...

Wales

After a quick turnaround from Turkey, we piled the car up again and headed west, towards Wales. We've both been there before, me when we were on holiday in 2006, and Kent when he stayed with Louise's parents and worked on the coast for a few weeks a couple of years before.

Our first attempt at leaving Sheffield didn't go so well - the car refused to start. We have been worrying for the last few months that something might go a bit haywire with the car while we're cruising about, so, fortunately, we took out some breakdown cover before we left Ipswich... phew!
It was very dark and a lot later than intended by the time we made it to our accommodation near Newport, on the Pembrokeshire coast, so we headed straight inside... a static caravan, which was a new experience for both of us, and not too bad although it ended up being so cold in the bedroom that we slept on the couches in the lounge by the gas fire! We did a wee bit around Pembrokeshire over the next couple of days, visiting Britain's smallest city, St David's (population 2,000, but it has a cathedral, so it gets to be a city), Fishguard - site of the last invasion of Britain (by the French in 1797 - embarrasingly shortlived), Pembroke Castle and St Govan's Chapel, a tiny chapel perched in some cliffs - it was gorgeous! We called past Pentre Ifan, an acient burial chamber nearby, which beggars belief, the massive rock on top seems to be balanced on the tiniest points of the support rocks, and yet it's been standing for thousands of years. After a false start when we went to one place that seemed a non-event, we found the actual attraction was a reconstructed Iron Age village (thatched roof round houses), called Castell Henllys. The map didn't show it as anything particularly noteworthy, so it was great to just stumble across it... we ended up spending ages there. We managed to sneak in a visit to Cilgerran Castle and Carreg Sampson burial chamber on the way home too.
We left Pembrokeshire for Mid Wales, and despite having a fairly full day planned, the car had other ideas, deciding that today was the day it would make noises that you normally expect to hear coming from a tank, rather than a 1L car... so we found a garage and got it checked out (times like this make me miss being able to call my Dad to ask what's wrong!). As it turned out, the muffler had come lose and was past its best, so a new one was summoned and arrived within a couple of hours, so it wasn't a complete waste of a day, and we managed to get to Mwnt (no idea how to say that, I'm afraid) for lunch and Llandovery to see the ruins of the castle there, before driving to our digs, England and Wales' most remote hostel, Ty'ncornel. It was quite a way from everywhere, and the last mile of the track was a bit iffy, but the reward was a converted farmhouse, with an open fire, and no one else staying. Once the fire was roaring, we defrosted a bit and decided we would once again have to sleep in the lounge as the rest of the place was a bit Arctic... Kent even got up a few times in the night to keep the fire blazing - so sweet of him!
We stayed with Louise's parents, Sue & Cyril, in Berriew for the next three nights and they were fabulous hosts, and in an ideal place for some cruisy days, checking out a huge antique shop, Stokesay Castle, the ruins of the Bryntail Lead Mine, and Ludlow, where I finally had my watch fixed (perhaps now we will get up earlier?). We also went up the coast to Harlech, the site of one of the most impressive castles we've been to, then it was onto a Roman amphitheatre site (as we later found out, we didn't look at the right things there though), 500ft underground into some slate mine caverns, then another burial chamber.
When we holidayed, Kent's father suggested we go to Portmeirion, but we ran out of time, so we made sure we went this time around, and it was well worth the visit. It's an 'Italianate' private village, created by an architect who saved some old facades of buildings in other towns around the country and built up a really colourful, beautiful little town. The weather was a bit average when we were there, and it was still lovely, so I imagine in summer it's even better. From there, seeing as we just can't get enough castles, we stopped off at Criccieth Castle before we went to our bunkhouse at the end of the Lleyn peninsula (the sticky out bit on the west coast in the north of Wales). We walked along one of the headlands the next morning, which, despite our host's estimation that it would take an hour, took over 3, although the scenery was amazing.
Our last day in Wales was Sunday, which meant lots of things were closed, including what seemed like the entire town of Holyhead, which we drove all the way across Anglesey Island to walk around, but never mind, we still had a quick walk around near the marina for a look at the yachts and ferries. We were mostly just killing time until the Segontium Roman Fort opened, so as soon as it did we were on the doorstep, wandering around, absorbing the history... it never ceases to amaze either of us that these remains have been there for SO long - these ones started being built in 78AD! The volunteer working there was really interesting too, he really knew his history, so it was great to talk with him about all sorts of Roman and other history. I have just read that back and realised what utter geeks we are... but it's hard not to be. Photos, geeky and not-so-geeky, below:

Then we drove back to Sheffield, some of the way in some fairly heavy snow flurries - it was very pretty, but a bit worrying as all we've seen and heard in the news today is how much there's been all over the country, trains into London are mostly suspended, the roads are trecherous and Heathrow has had to cancel lots of flights and delay others... and we're supposed to be flying from there to Marrakech tomorrow afternoon after driving to Ipswich and taking the train from there... eek! Never mind, am sure we'll get there in the end...

K & E x

A City with Two Tales...

Another week, another country... Last week was Istanbul, which was a LOT different to anywhere we've been previously, and, thankfully, a bit warmer than we expected, yay! It seems we've come away with slightly different impressions of the place, so:

HE SAYS...
Kent wasn't impressed with Istanbul mostly... things didn't really start well on our first day, when we went to the tourist information centre and asked for some, well, information. The man there was less than impressed that we had walked into his domain, expecting to be helped and decided the best way to deal with us was to be bloody rude. Nice.
Things got even better when we walked into the Grand Bazaar that afternoon... he hadn't really anticipated just how forward and pushy the merchants would be... as it's winter, there are very few people around, so they were keen to make a sale out of those who were there... us! Virtually every single shop we walked past had someone in front of it who asked where we were from ("New Zealand." " Aah, key-vee, key-vee!") and didn't really want to let us get away without buying something... Kent was NOT into this approach at all. We did get better at this though, and our visit to the Spice Bazaar a few days later was less painful for him... plus he bought a massive bag of proper chewy dried apricots for 3YTL (about 50p). To slightly compound the problem, our hotel was in the middle of the Bazaar district, so there wasn't really any escape from the relentless "Hello nice couple, you like something to eat/tea set/new jeans/turkish delight?"
We did however discover that real Turkish Delight is actually really, really, yummy, and not at all like that rubbish they put in the Roses chocolates! Also, their fondness for Apple Tea and how frequently people offer it to you when they are attempting to make a sale is brilliant - we brought some back and are making our way through it rather nicely.
We trekked up to one of the universities to see a Salvador Dali exhibition in its museum, it was interesting, and the paintings themselves were colourful, but mostly it was an eye-opener... I know this just demonstrates my lack of artistic understanding, but it seems the guy was a bit of a nutter (sorry if he's your inspiration) who was rather self obsessed. I'm probably going to be lynched by crazed art students now.
His biggest highlight was going to see Galatasaray play football. I have to confess that even I enjoyed it, in spite of the cold, the crowd, though small was very loud and it was quite a festive atmosphere. Galatasaray won 4-2 over Mulatyaspor, although we accidentally supported the wrong side for the first 18 mins of the game - in our defence, we were supposed to be supporting the home side, who play in dark red and yellow vertical stripes... one team was wearing said dark red and yellow stripes, and the other was playing in white, so we assumed the former was 'our' team... thank goodness Galatasaray scored first, and we figured it out, although it was somewhat bewildering when the crowd (wearing home colours) erupted in cheers when what we thought was the opposition (in white) scored!
Kent was disappointed with most of the touristy things, as there doesn't seem to be the organised preservation that there is in the UK and other parts of Europe. They were pretty expensive and there isn't a lot of information for the fee you pay. He did really like the Yedikule Hisar (Fortress of the Seven Towers) though, and the adjacent city walls... although the homeless shanties "built" in the terraces beside the wall weren't really to his taste! It was a bit of a shame that we only made it there on the day before we left, or he might have had a better time...

SHE SAYS...
I LOVED it! The noise, the hustle and bustle, the riot of colour in the Bazaars, it was fantastic. Although the rude man in the tourist information office did throw things into a bit of a spin to start with, once we had our bearings and worked out the public transport system though, it was pretty good. I loved the Bazaar - most of the men are pretty good if you just say 'no, thanks' and smile at them, and they seemed to know when they were flogging a dead horse... apart from the guy who managed to blindside Kent and talk him into buying a backgammon set unexpectedly, we managed to escape fairly unscathed. We also watched a couple of the merchants playing a couple of rounds of Backgammon while we were there; they made our games look positively snail-like! We made the mistake of giving in to one of the restaurant chaps near our hotel, thinking that if we dined there once he would be satisfied... oops! He was a bit persistant after that, but seemed to realise it was all just a bit of a laugh and didn't make a nuisance of himself.
The Muslim aspect of life there was really interesting - there are mosques everywhere you look (not surprising, as there are 15 million people in the city) and the call to prayer plays five times a day from the speakers on the minarets... the first time we wondered what on earth was going on (as the prayer wasn't what we consider 'tuneful'), but it's actually quite eerily cool.
We visited the Blue Mosque (alright, but not as pretty inside as Aya Sofya), Aya Sofya (a former church, turned mosque, turned museum), Topkapi Palace, Galata Tower, Istiklal Caddesi (the modern shopping street) and all the usual tourist spots, which were quite pretty.
We took a ferry trip over to the Asian side (Istanbul straddles both Europe and Asia) for a day, and had a wander about there, and took in a belly dancing show (Kent ended up strutting his stuff on stage with a couple of the dancers! Photo below) in an underground establishment that we think might also have been a brothel... classy.
The fish market was also a bit of an experience, am not particularly good with fish in the first place, but it was mostly the cooked whole sheep heads on display that caused a bit of squeamishness with me - but travel is all about getting into a different culture, so it was ok.
Plus, we ended up buying a carpet from a less pushy man outside the Grand Bazaar, on our last day. We negotiated with three different shops and finally found one willing to come down a bit further on one we both love, so it was a happy (and slightly heavier luggage) note to leave on.
As usual, click on the photo below and it will take you to the album...

More when we're back from Wales.
K & E x

Scotland Part 3 of 3

Finally, we'd made it to the part of our Scotland trip that we had been most looking forward to - a couple of days on the Isle of Tiree, the outermost of the Inner Hebrides. A nice change, as the island is in the Gulfstream, so it's very windy, but quite a bit (4-5 deg) warmer than most of the mainland, so it was a welcome break from freezing conditions to just standard cold.
We arrived after a 4hr ferry crossing, and were immediately a bit stuck... there was NO mobile phone coverage, and we were on foot, 7.5 miles away from our cottage...eeek! Not to worry though, a lovely couple of locals drove past us as we were walking from the ferry terminal and asked where we were headed and did we need a ride? They even stopped off at the shop and waited for us so we could pick up some groceries! This is probably due to it being quite a small community, so the people are very friendly... which showed again when we arrived at our cottage (which was cute-as-a-button, see pics) and there wasn't any coal for the fire, and I had to walk a mile or two to find a house with someone home to use the phone to order some... luckily, that lady was also very obliging. And again in the afternoon when we were walking the 3.5 miles back from the shop with a couple of things we'd forgotten, a woman stopped off and gave us a ride... so refreshing, and exactly what either of us would do in the circumstances if the tables were turned.
After a warm toasty night in front of the coal fire, watching a DVD we had a lazy morning, before heading off for a walk around the coast and up one of Tiree's two hills. The island itself is quite windswept and interesting - it's so windy that there aren't really trees, or proper gardens, which is quite different, and it really feels quite serene and sort of deserted, but in a good way. We walked along a beautiful white sand beach, up some massively steep cliffs and over the top of one of the peninsulas before tackling the hill - which was only 146 metres high, so not especially tough. Topped that off with a walk down it, through really marshy scrub getting completely sodden feet on the way, to Hynish to see the old pier and some older buildings from the construction of a lighthouse which is 12m offshore. We managed to spot a seal swimming in to shore here, but the little bugger wouldn't come onto land while we were there, so we began our walk home, rapidly losing light, with 4 or 5 miles ahead of us... unfortunately the Tiree-an desire to give us a ride back didn't rear it's head this time round.
We left the island the next morning determined to go back there for longer sometime... we definitely recommend it.
Our ferry the next day was a little later and we arrived in Oban mid afternoon for a jaunt around the town to see some of the sights, including McCaig's Tower, which was inspired by the Colusseum, and sounds as though it might be out of place perched atop a hill in a port town, but actually looks like it has always been there, even though its only just over 100 years old.
We popped into the Falkirk Wheel on the way across country; it's a massive structure that lifts boats between 115ft between two canals - quite cool looking.
Then we headed for a place that I've wanted to visit since I was little - Guthrie Castle. My family (on Mum's side) are Guthries, and it was only sold by some (I suspect very distant-) relatives 28 years ago. It's now privately owned, and a couple of cousins have tried to visit in past years with no luck. Fortunately I happened to see online that it does weddings, and seeing as we're having one of those soon, I called and asked if we could have a look through it as a potential venue. This was both great, as it was beautiful - the castle itself is very grand and the grounds are amazing - and depressing - as I now really want to get married there, but the logistics of tying the knot on this side of the world probably won't work. Never mind though, we can still say we've been there and seen it... including the Trophy Room, which features a full-size real stuffed bear, amongst other exotic (stuffed) creatures. Click on the photo below for the full experience!

We drove back to Stirling that night to stay in a hostel, where I watched Braveheart for the first time... which was quite timely and I did enjoy it, although it was pretty easy to pick out the bits they used a bit of artistic license and Hollywood-ised.
There was a farmers' market on the next morning, so we went to that, bought far more bacon, venison and Highland beef than was really necessary,and then walked up the hill from the backpackers' to Stirling Castle. The howling wind and pouring rain really wasn't helpful for walking between the buildings, but we did stumble across the Tapestry Studio, where weavers are recreating a series of seven large tapestries. Each one takes about two to three years to complete, with three or four weavers working on it full time! There was one weaver in the studio while we where there, and it was fascinating to watch her working, it's such painstaking work and not hard to see how it takes so long to finish.
It was hard to believe that we only had one day of our Scotland adventure left, and we still hadn't been to Edinburgh, so we left bright and early on Sunday morning, and called past the beautiful Tantallon Castle, which is further east along the coast from the city. It's one of those castles you see on postcards - perched on a clifftops jutting out into the Firth of Forth - lovely, and still in fairly good nick. We had to tear ourselves away from this to head into Edinburgh, where we made it to the National Museum of Scotland at about lunchtime and managed to see the bottom floor (out of seven!!) in the almost three hours we were there - not the best time management, so we will have to go back and see more of both the museum and the sights - before we had to start the trek back to Sheffield to hurriedly do some washing before our flight to Istanbul. It's quite tiring, all this holidaying!
Take care,
K & E x