April Holiday: Spain: Cordoba (flamenco)

On Saturday night, we went to see a flamenco performance as kind of a last hurrah in Spain.  We generally go to see flamenco once a year in Boston at places like the Wang Theatre or the Opera House, but this place was different.  A long room with tables meant that although we were close to the back of the room, we were closer to the action than we'd ever been before.  And it was incredible.
First a woman and a man danced together, then a woman alone, then four women together, and then the man came back alone.  I love flamenco - my darling sister used to take classes at the Dance Complex - and these guys were good.  Hair up, long ruffly skirts, poise... it's such a cool art form.  Way more sensual than ballet, and watching it in Cordoba was magical.
The next day we drove up to Madrid and home to Paris!
Have you seen flamenco?  What did you think?
(photo from here)

April Holiday: Spain: Cordoba (the Mezquita)

Almost done, I promise!
On Friday, the day after we had been to the Alhambra, we packed up and headed to Cordoba.  This was possibly the place I was the most excited about going on our entire trip.  In senior year, I had chosen to do a senior project on Islamic geometry and the history of the Cordoba Caliphate - the period of Muslim rule in Spain.  My project advisor and I spent hours looking at photos of the Mezquita and reading Arabic poetry about the structure of the universe.  We read about the culture of tolerance for the other "peoples of the book" that was destroyed in the Spanish Inquisition.  We talked about the Greek works translated into Arabic and brought back to Europe and about the origins of flamenco.  I wrote a paper on the mosque, or the Mezquita.  And to actually see it was incredible.
We visited the Mezquita on Saturday, and it took my breath away.  Thousands of red-and-white striped double arches stretching into infinity in the hugeness of the space.  There was none of the intricate stucco-work or zellij we saw at the Alhambra or in Fes - this was a kind of grandeur and simplicity I'd never seen before.
Nothing really prepares you for going in.  The vaulted ceilings and the arches make the space feel huge - I've been in an awful lot of churches with vaulted ceilings and stained glass reaching to the sky, but I've never felt so small in a building in my entire life.  There were easily a thousand people or more in the mosque, but it was easy to feel like you were maybe the only one there.
The Mezquita was built on what had once been a Visigoth Cathedral, which had been built on the site of a Roman temple, which had been built on what some believe to be a holy pagan site with standing stones.  The Ummayads, who built the mosque, borrowed heavily from the Roman ruins around Cordoba (which had once been a Roman outpost), taking capitals and columns and even the arches from aqueducts.  When they expanded the mosque and had no more Roman capitals and columns, they fake-antiqued some of their materials to look like they had come from Roman sites.  Even the red-and-white stripe pattern on the arches - done in alternating shades of brick - was inspired by the vestiges of Roman architecture.
Have you been to Cordoba?  Do you want to go?  Did you visit the Mezquita?

April Holiday: Spain: Granada

We arrived in Spain in the midst of Semana Santa, or Holy Week, which was quite an experience!  I have to admit, it was really a little scary at first.  Troops of men in purple and white Ku Klux Klan - esque robes and hats, carrying statues through the streets...  My first reaction was to think back to my US History classes from sophomore year and the segregated South, but after a while it wasn't so startling and I could understand more of the magic and mystery of Spanish Catholicism.
For that first evening, we wandered around the old town of Granada before settling in to eat delicious tapas at a local restaurant (and watch a very upsetting Madrid-Barcelona game in which Barcelona lost), and tried to get to sleep at a reasonable hour for all the things we were going to do the next day.
Our second day in Granada we got to see the Alhambra.  I had wanted to visit it for years, and so in the afternoon we visited the main gardens and the Generalife before returning at ten-thirty to see the rest.  It's as magical as everything you've ever heard, and seeing it at night - the lit-up town below, the intricate stucco on the windows, the golden Arabic poetry climbing to the arched and inlaid ceilings - took my breath away.  We wandered through the Boat Room, where each geometrical piece of the arches had been painted different colours, and through the Hall of the Myrtles, where the moon (almost full!) glistened over the long reflecting pool.
If you ever get a chance to go to the Alhambra, even if it's like us and you get the last tickets for ten-thirty at night, go.  It's exquisite and one of the most stunning examples of Moorish architecture in the world.  Just thinking about the artists who painted the ceilings and made the tiles and painstakingly applied gold leaf to the windows is overwhelming, don't you think?
Have you ever been to the Alhambra?  What did you think?  If you haven't, would you like to go?

April Holiday: Morocco: Tetouan and Tangier

We arrived in Tetouan in the rain - a town near the coast where we were obviously the only tourists in the town (maybe ever).  From what we could tell, it's not a very popular tourist destination, but it's beautiful and real, and we spent an enjoyable hour or two wandering the medina and peeking into antique shops (we eventually bought a 1930s candelabra thing).  From Tetouan it was back to Tangier.
If Fes is the heart of the Morocco that I saw, the Louvre or the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a place that it would take years to know the street names, let alone understand the city, Tangier is a little more like the Isabella Stewart Gardener in Boston.  It's little and intimate and really quite beautiful - somewhat confusing but you'll figure it out in maybe a month or two.  But it was only a quick night at Riad Tanja (La Tangerina, sadly, was closed) where we had an incredible meal and then up the next morning to take the ferry to Spain for five days....

April Holiday: Morocco: Chefchaouen

We drove into the little town of Chefchaouen in the Rif mountains in the late afternoon, and the sun glinted off the white and blue buildings.  Until 1920, the town had been the refuge of Muslim and Jewish refugees from Spain, and Christians were forbidden on pain of death.
Unfortunately, to us the town seemed a little too much like a tourist trap and we mainly used it as a starting-off point for hikes.  The next day, we drove out to Akchour to hike to the Bridge of God - a pretty incredible natural formation above a huge gorge - and really scary to walk across!  My father was a boy scout growing up (he also practically lived in the Smokies), and these hikes, while not very difficult, gave us a great chance to be out in nature.  We ate that night at the incredible Auberge Dardara, where I highly recommend the goat with fig.
The next day we drove out, towards Tetouan and the Mediterranean coast...
(photo from here)

April Holiday: Morocco: Volubulis

I know, I should be going onwards from Fes towards Chefchaouen, like we did in real life.  But I forgot Volubulis, which we visited on our way from Meknes to Fes.
If you decide to visit Volubulis (which you should; it's incredible), wear sunscreen.  I'm not joking.  Even if you never burn, even if you're wearing a hat and spf clothing, even if you're like my mother and my little sister and were actually made to be in places like Morocco, wear sunscreen.  I reapplied like ten times and I still got burned.
Volubulis is an ancient Roman city in the hills between Meknes and Fes, and it was absolutely incredible.  Though we didn't see the entire thing (at its height I think it housed something like twenty thousand people)  what we did see was incredible.  Things like mosaics of Orpheus playing his lyre to all the animals, and bathouses, and ancient olive presses.  We walked down paved roads lined with pillars from two thousand years ago, and saw mosaics of the Myth of Acteon and Hercules' Trials.  We wandered into the forum (where they were filming some sort of low-budget Spanish film) and the basilica, and admired the Triumphal Arch and the House of the Columns.  Volubulis, abandoned in 1755 (though the Romans left in 280), was a beautiful city in a beautiful place.  Standing among the cypress trees in the House of Venus, hills of olive and wheat and poppies stretch to the bases of mountains.
In short, if you like history and ruins, you should definitely stop by Volubulis... I don't know, am I the only one who likes seeing how people used to live?  But I cannot stress this enough - wear sunscreen and drink water.  There is no shade.
Have you been to Volubulis or other Roman ruins?  What did you think?

April Holiday: Morocco: Fes (Sufi concert)

That night, we headed over to the Batha Museum, where the first concert of the Sufi Mysticism Festival would be performed.  It took us a while to decide (that or a great dinner?) but we eventually ran towards the concert and found ourselves seats in the courtyard.
The Batha Museum is a beautiful place to hold a concert.  We sat in the courtyard, and the musicians played beneath a huge oak tree in the garden, but it wasn't just the setting that was magical.  The music was like nothing I'd ever heard before - spiritual and haunting.  Everyone in the audience seemed to know the words to some of the songs, and it sent shivers down my spine to be surrounded by voices like that.  They played two sets - the first by a group of Andalusian musicians, and the second by a Moroccan singer and her band.  The music changed time signatures and used notes I hadn't known existed; it almost shimmered in the air.  I have never been to a concert as moving as that one, and I probably never will again, but it was wonderful to sit in the courtyard under a tree that had to be older than a thousand years, and to hear music that seemed to exist outside the dimensions that I knew.
Have you ever heard Sufi music?  What did you think?

April Holiday: Morocco: Fes (carpets)

After the tannery, we approached a carpet shop, thinking that we were only going to look around and maybe come back the next day if we liked something (this may have been a furnish-our-house trip, too...).  We even had a plan to get out - one of us would get "sick" and have to go home to "lie down" or something.  All I can say is that carpet sellers fall for nothing.
The second we got in, we saw a beautiful rug - one that looked like a piece of the sky - and another gorgeous one higher up.  My parents, who have lived all over the world and know how to bargain, looked at a bunch of other ones first, bargained for a while on those, but eventually we got around to the ones we loved, and the price went back through the roof.
We spent hours in the carpet shop, my parents (who are total pros at this) choosing some top price and communicating telepathically and steadily talking the guy down.  I was really really impressed, and eventually we walked away with the two carpets and three little rugs (not sure why he included those, but okay) en route to the States.  It was probably around five or six by then, and time to hurry back to the house to get ready for our next stop...
In short, the carpet sellers in Fes know what they're doing.  They know how to bargain and come back to you again and again, to subtly hint that those rugs won't be there in the morning, to keep you trapped in their shops forever (one can "lie down" on piles of  rugs, as it turns out, if one is "ill").  The key is to know the most that you will pay for it, and then get it down to your optimal price.  You need to decide in advance  - and then practice like crazy for a while before people will believe you.  I can't bargain for the life of me, as every time someone brings up the fact that their children are starving (is it true?  I don't know) or insinuates that you, being a Westerner, could pay way more and they're just trying to make a living, I break down.  But my parents and my brother are excellent bargainers.  Have you been to Fes?  If so, did you get caught up into buying a carpet?  When in a country where bargaining is the norm, do you bargain?  Are you good at it?  Let me know in the comments!

April Holiday: Morocco: Fes (the tannery)

(from here)

The tannery was something that we'd wanted to visit since the beginning of our trip.  Famously large and with some of the best leatherwork in the world, it was pretty much everything it was cracked up to be, and also somewhat disturbing given the treatment and lack of healthcare of the workers.

Animal skins are treated in the white vats with a combination of pigeon poop, cow urine, and ash and then dyed with indigo, saffron, poppy flowers, and mint in the coloured vats.  Workers jump in and out of the chemicals with bare feet, making sure that the skins are entirely covered.  Visitors to the tannery are given mint sprigs to hold under their noses, but the smell is still overpowering, and must be for the workers, too.  Those who work in the tannery are from families that have always worked in the tanneries, it seems - the job is passed down from father to son.  

Beside the tanneries are the leather goods that come out of it: bags and wallets and shoes and jackets, in every colour and style I could imagine.  I bought my first ever leather bag (all the others I have are cloth and gifts from friends and family) and a whole lot of wallets as Christmas presents for our extended family.  It was an incredible morning, and we moved on to other activities later in the day....

April Holiday: Morocco: Fes (the next couple days)

Since the Riad Lune et Soleil was full after our first night in Fes, we stayed at a little house run by the wonderful Anthony from Dar El Hana, which was perfect for us.  We would spend the days wandering the medina - we visited the stunning Kerouine Mosque, the Madersa el-Attarine, and countless little souks and side streets.  Wandering in and out of Seffarine square (where the brass-workers are) and the henna souk (where the hawkers are), between convenience stores piled high with fanta and kit-kats and tourist shops with glass bangles, was magical.  We visited the Batha Museum, where they were preparing for the Sufi Mysticism Festival, and the Royal Gardens.  We negotiated the winding streets of the Andalus Quarter and the Fondouks, where travelling traders stayed while they were in Fes.
While a lot of the things in the medina are obviously geared towards tourists, you can easily find your way away from that towards the realer, grittier Fes - the Fes of produce markets and smoky street food stalls, of hidden gardens and graffiti endorsing FC Barcelona and Real Madrid.  You find your way deep into the souks where you can bargain with shopkeepers and get a (hopefully) not too inflated price.  You drink cup after cup of steaming mint tea and experience Fes for what it is - perhaps the most alive place that I've ever been to.

April Holiday: Morocco: Fes (first night)

There is so much to say about Fes.  The medina is the largest urban area without automobiles, and it's normal to see a donkey and cart carrying a washing machine or a refrigerator or a million chickens in cages up the hilly streets of the medina.  We arrived late-ish, and quickly made our way to the Riad Lune et Soleil, where we spent our first night.  After the dusty long roads of Morocco, driving by olive and argan trees, the difference was magical.  We stepped into a courtyard of lemon and orange trees and a fountain in the middle, a tiled green oasis with books along the walls and four adorable tortoises roaming the garden.  We settled into the corner table with books and the birthday present that I still haven't finished for my sister and glasses of wine and mint tea - and then the call to prayer started.  Dashing to the bougainvillea-filled terrace, we got to hear the last of the unearthly haunting melodies and watch the sunset as the city lit up.
We ate that night at Thami, somewhere that's actually pretty famous but doesn't make very good food at all (oftentimes, after Paris, dinners in Morocco were disappointing) and wandered back to our hotel for a very good night's sleep.

April Holiday: Morocco: Meknes

Personally, I wouldn't suggest going to Meknes, but that was just my opinion.
Historically, it enjoyed one period of prominence when Moulay Ismail decided to build his imperial city - after his death, the capital relocated to Marrakesh.  Driving in, slightly sunburned from our day on the beach, we were greeted by an incomprehensible road system and, slowly, the dusty city rising from the tangle of highway.
It didn't help that the hotel we wanted to be at was full and we were relocated to a musty and cold (but overpriced) place - or that my darling brother was getting sick.  The next day, all of us feeling overheated and ill, we moved on in the next leg of our journey, to magical and old-as-time Fes....

April Holiday: Morocco: Moulay Bousselham

The next morning, we packed up from Larache and headed down the coast to Moulay Bousselham, a small fishing village, and bird sanctuary - or so we thought.  After a morning of driving through beautiful farmland, we finally got to Moulay Bousselham - more an empty resort town in April than a fishing village.
We reached to village in the heat of the day, so we waited an hour or so to go out on a boat to see the flamingos and other birds in the bird sanctuary...

On a boat exactly like these ones.  

The bird sanctuary was amazing.  We saw ospreys and cormorants wheeling over most of the little sandpipers, and, thrillingly, a crowd of about five hundred flamingos sitting together.  

An afternoon swimming on a secluded beach only accessible by boat and liberal applications of sunscreen... until we packed up that night to drive onwards to Meknes....

(photos from here and here, respectively)

April Holiday: Morocco: Asilah and Larache

Driving out of Tangier, we stopped once at a beach that we deemed to dirty to swim at (seriously - broken glass in the waves) and moved on to Asilah, which someone had decided to make as clean as Switzerland - as a result it was really quiet, and we only stayed long enough for a phenomenal lunch of fish and moved on to the next place.
We spent the night in Larache, where my darling brother's Spanish was more useful than my French at La Maison Haute, where Hassan, his wife Fatima, and their wonderful son Mohammed welcomed us into their incredible home.  We took the paseo (sunset walk) by the bay and drank tea to the call to prayer... it was a beautiful town!  Thank you, Hassan and Fatima!

April Holiday: Morocco: Tangier

Our first day on holiday started out in Tangier (or Tanger in French) where we stayed at La Tangerina, one of the loveliest hotels I've ever seen.  That first night, after driving around in hopeless circles in the confusing twisty North African streets, we sat on the terrace drinking mint tea in tiny glass cups looking out over the sea to Spain and listening to the chorus of the muezzins calling people to prayer - pretty incredible, no?
The next day we wandered over to the Kasbah museum, had more mint tea (this time with orange flowers in it!) and then lunch on a terrace called "Le Salon Bleu" - I would highly recommend it to anyone visiting Tangier!  We finished up with dinner out at El-Minzah (not actually as good as the Lonely Planet says) and got a good night's sleep before heading off to our next destination...
Tangier is one of my favourite cities.  The whitewashed buildings overlooking the sea make it seem a little more like the Greek Isles than Morocco, and despite what everyone said before we left, we weren't hassled at all.  It was quiet and lovely, damp sea air in the mornings giving way to sunny afternoons and nights in the Grand Sokko alive with people selling avocados and teapots and spice mixes.  It also has a history of writers and expats living in and around the medina (which is really where you want to be) - the whole place seems charged with the history of the past eight hundred or so years.
Have you been to Tangier?  What did you think?

Happy Easter Monday and April Holiday

Hello, blog readers!
I'm sorry I've been away for so long - I was on holiday with my family for two weeks in Morocco and in Spain, which I want to tell you all about, if you'd like to hear....
In short, we flew in to Tangier, made our way down the coast through Asilah to Larache and then Moulay Bousselham to Meknes, then a thrilling three or four days in Fes to Chefchaouen to Tetouan back to Tangier.
In Spain, we went to Granada and Cordoba before coming home to Paris - in the next couple days I plan to tell you everything about it!
Love,
Bronwyn

This Weekend/Holiday

We had a wonderful weekend, kicking things off with Ursula's birthday and then, on Saturday night, a friend of my father's came over for dinner...  And, as usual, plenty of wandering around Paris at length.
We also started actually planning our holiday that - wow, starts next week!  I'll be gone for two weeks in Morocco and Spain with my family, and I'm so excited!  We're going to go hiking in the Atlas mountains and visit the ancient architecture of Cordoba and.... ooh, does anyone have any suggestions?
Have a lovely Monday, everyone!