Our last day in Morocco began very early, before sunrise. We got up and walked out into the sand dunes and watched the magic as the sun peaked over the sand. I think the part that is the most indescribable is the different shades of color of sand. And how intensely and incredibly beautifully it reflects as the the rays …
As an avid traveler, I’m not sure I have a “bucket list” per se because travel for me is about life not death. But I definitely have a list of travel dreams. To accomplish one in a few years is incredible. But to accomplish two in less than four months seems unfathomable. However, a mere months after reaching my seventh …
And now for something completely different. I am not a birdwatcher. I feed the birds on my deck and I recognize a few of them, like the cardinal and the finch. But mostly if I see a bird that’s pretty, I point at it and say, “Oh. There’s a pretty bird.” But it has to be fairly obvious because my …
A few people have asked about how I put this trip together and how it was organized, and I thought that this would be a good post to explain that as the past day has been about travel coordination. When Gretchen and I decided to go, we talked about the places we wanted to visit, knowing we would want to …
Today was a deep dive into Morocco, its history and culture, as we took a walking tour of the old city portion of Fes. Today Fes has a modern city and the medieval Medina, which together have 1.5 million people. Fes was founded in 789 by Iraqis who sought to bring Islam to Morocco. Prior to that time, the country …
The key to successful travel experiences, in my opinion, is pace. You can’t go, go, go all the time and really appreciate all that a country has to offer. At least I can’t. So some days you need to deliberately slow down to experience a country and not just see it. That’s what today was all about. We had a …
Serendipity: “The occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.” Serendipity — what we experienced this evening in Tangier. Last night, during dinner, we had the most delightful waiter, Reda, a high school senior. During the course of our conversation over the meal, he extended an invitation to us to join him and some of …
Normally when I get up in the morning, I do not plan my wardrobe to coordinate with the city to which I am traveling. However, this wasn’t a normal day and Chefchauoen is not a normal city. We set out with our driver from the previous day and drove two hours up to the mountains to this famous blue city. …
I often tell people that I have adopted Rick Steves approach to travel, which focuses on being a backdoor traveler. Today I took that to a whole new level. We spent the first part of the day touring Morocco with a driver arranged through our lodging. Our driver, Mohammed, spoken no English. However, we were able to communicate through Martha’s …
What started with a loose screw ended with a magical encounter with a painting that has long been one of my favorite works of art. So goes the serendipity of travel as I embark on another segment of “Travels with Paula—Moroccan (and unexpectedly Madrid) edition.” (Time to silence my posts if you don’t like my travelogues.) After getting up at …
Whatever you might have thought about Marrakech, it is. At least in the market at Jama al Fna square. There are actually two markets. One, during the day, is busy, but somewhat laid-back. People wander though the huge square on their way to the covered souks, stopping to buy a smoothie from the many carts lined up end to end, …
The future of Morocco may look a lot like Fatima. This 28-year-old dynamo took on the Fez establishment — the “all-male” Fez establishment — to fulfill her latest goal. She opened her five-room inn inside the medina last July and is already looking to do bigger things. Fatima (she uses only her first name), got a degree in hotel and …
Moroccans are fond of saying it was the first country to recognize the fledgling United States of America. It wasn’t. That was erroneously stated in some article back in the 1950s. The first country to recognize the U.S. was France, which it probably did just to rankle the much-despised British, who, of course, had just lost their colonies. But what …