We went to Morocco for 2 weeks back in June. So it’s been a good five months since we got back.. Note to self: next time don’t leave it so long before writing about a holiday! Here’s a random summary of the trip.

We had several amazing experiences and saw an awful lot of cool things – fond memories which will stay with us forever. Above all and anything else, dear reader – please remember that. (You’ll see what I mean later) But in case you’re in any doubt – HERE is a subset of the 1500 photos we took over the two weeks – let me tell you selecting which ones to include was not an easy task – but I know that people’s attention spans only go so far. I really love some of these photos – well worth looking at the full size shots to see the detail in the carving / architecture.

On the whole…. Morocco is hot and dry – low 30s every day.. as a minimum. Perhaps we’ve gone a little soft on the hot weather front since we’ve left Australia – but we certainly drank far more water than usual. Given that Morocco is a predominantly Muslim country, alcohol is only really available in really touristy hotels/restaurants, but we did our best to avoid those. So it was essentially a dry couple of weeks for us. This was a bit unusual for being on holidays, but I can’t say I missed it.

Morocco feels like it’s a hybrid between African and Arab countries. Given it’s location it’s probably not all that surprising. The people are generally friendly, I felt safer walking around in any city there than I do when walking through London at night. But here’s the thing… I got the impression that Western tourists are still considered something of a novelty over there. As such, we’re seen as an opportunity to make a bit of cash. And THAT my friends was the downside of our time in Morocco. We went there ready for action. We had read how haggling is the expected method of trade for many items – you’re just meant to play the game. To be honest we were pretty excited about this side of things. The reality was that the rules of haggling were very different for us Western folk and you had to play hardball so as not to get ripped off. Then there was the constant stream of “Please act as an ambassador for our country and tell everyone you know back home to come to Morocco” So on one hand they’re your best friend and asking you to plug their fine nation to your friends, and on the other hand they’re applying the squeeze. I found it very hard to reconcile the two.

Marrakesh: Pleasantly chaotic. The main square Djemaa El Fna is a hive of activity day and night. Market and food stalls in abundance. The markets are full of trinkety things, many worth buying if you’re that way inclined. One could (and should) spend a good 4-5 days in Marrakesh. You will not regret it. Aside from the city itself, Marrakesh is a good base from which to do all manner of tours to nearby (and not so nearby) cities/towns/mountains..

Essaouira: Lovely beach-side town. A great chance to relax, chill out and eat some awesome seafood after the relative chaos of Marrakesh. Some really pretty photos from here. There was soo much sand on the beach – might sound obvious, but it was really impressive. We took a camel ride along the beach and through some hills… Very cool. Definitely worth a trip.

Rabat: Capital city. Most modern and commercial city we saw. But the ruins/monuments we saw there were excellent and made it well worth a visit. Some good photos from Rabat..

Fes: The old town is full of something like 11,000 small winding streets, making it nigh on impossible for a foreigner to navigate without the aid of a guide. Fortunately the guides are inexpensive, but you lose a bit of your autonomy as you can’t do much on your own. Olivia and I were not so keen on this. Nonetheless, there is lots to see and do in Fes. I particularly enjoyed the leather tanneries – they stank an awful lot but they were visually very impressive.

Meknes – Everyone said that “you must go to Meknes” – it was okay, some nice old buildings etc.. but safe to give it a miss I’d say.

Originally Olivia and I were thinking of doing a week in Morocco and a week in Portugal for our holiday. With hindsight, if we’d done that, and just gone to Marrakesh and Essaouira this would have been a very different write up – I would have said that Morocco was the best place ever and that all should go. . Two weeks proved to be a bit much for us. The fact that we abandoned our flights home and bought a new set of tickets just so that we could leave a day early probably says something.

So, how to conclude this poorly constructed holiday review? Despite the issues I had, I don’t regret going to Morocco for a second – I look forward to showing off the Moroccan goodies we bought when we come home. I think that the photo collection does our trip much better justice than this post.

Postscript: I can’t believe I didn’t mention the food in Morocco..

There’s a lot of really tasty food in Morocco. We had some delicious tagines and couscous. A wonderful chicken or pigeon filled pastry called pastilla (pronounced: pasteeya), and some quite tasty grilled meats, fish and vegetables. Unfortunately, in many places the food was dumbed down for the tourists and seemingly almost all spices were removed. Talk about Moroccan food for English people… This was a bit odd seeing all the mounds of spices in many of the market stalls. But we were lucky on a number of occasions and got to taste some excellent dishes – the one that sticks out most in my mind was a goat tagine, full of flavour – yummo… I can highly recommend Moroccan food if you can find the good stuff.