Day 6 - Fes

Now we're in the Morocco we expected, Fes is a 1200 year old living & working city with many aspects unchanged from the way they were done hundreds of years ago. This is the place you may have seen in the brochures (and on Getaway as they'll proudly tell you!) especially the leather tannery with it's colorful pools, like an enormous painting set.

The Medina (old town) was established for the camel caravans on the trade routes from Africa to Europe, carrying spices, slaves, gold and such. While there were no camels in the many kilometers of narrow alleyways,  there were plenty of people, shops, cats, chooks, and very well behaved donkeys! We again got suckered in as tourists and had to sit thru a carpet flog, but we managed to resist tempatation. I'm afraid we can't say the same for the leather and ceramics, at least the bargaining was fun.

Day 5 - Casablanca to Fes

Tourist for a day today, haven't done this tourist thing for at least a decade but it's still probably the best way for us to do Morocco. First up Casablanca Mosque, the second biggest mosque in the world (remind anyone of Maxwell Smart?!) But if they give out awards for best mosque/synagogue/church (and I think they think they do!) then this one is right up there.  Holds as many people (over 100,000) as a large sports stadium (the other place of worship), has a hidden sound system and retractable roof, as well room enough for everyone to have  a little freshen up after the game, I mean prayer session. With a couple hundred thousand here praying inside and out, to the sound over the pa system,  this would probably be quite a sight and sound on prayer Friday.Is there where "Rock the Kasbah" comes from?

Next up was Rabat Palace and Mouseleum and now this place is starting to look more like the Morocco we were expecting.  The architecture is white & blue cities within ochre fortifed walls and there are mosaics and decorative copper and carpets everywhere. 

The driving is also quite something to behold. There is every type of vehicle you can imagine on the roads, with barely more than a centre line to direct it all.  But from tour buses to laden little donkies it all just works; even the sheep & goats being herded by their shephards seem to know to keep to the shoulder of the road. They do however have lots of police in very spiffy uniforms, with speed guns and just like at home, the locals recognise this as nothing more than revenue raising and not just for the state either! Our driver had a very friendly chat and a hand shake with one policeman and a 10 dirham (AUD$1.10) "exchange" was all that was required to make the 180 Euro (AUD$300 - a huge amount of money here) fine go away.

Still very much the tourists today we did a flying pass past Meknes taking in the Square and the three fortification walls, they also had a mega impressive granary from the 1600's. Yeah sounds boring I know but this King really did think of everything!

Finally arrived at Volebulis (believe it or not, it sounds like Volleyball-us just spken quickly) This place has serious Roman Ruins, 2000 years old and far more accessible than any in Rome.  You have to hand it to the Romans. First of all they picked an amazing location.  This is part of Africa is not sandy desert. It is lush green countryside, gently rolling hills with some impressive looking mountains (the Atlas) in the background.  The land is very fertile, they grow and mine everything so Morocco is a reasonably wealthy country.  So you have this lovely scenery reminiscent of Tuscany with the ruins of a city that once held around 35,000 in absolute luxury.  These guys had running hot and cold water, heated floors, central heating, saunas & jaccuzzi, shopping malls (yes really - a mall with over 180 stores) with every type of store you could want, olive oil presses and not to mention plenty of black slaves from Southern Africa to give them oil massages!

Spending the next couple of days here in Fes so walked the streets last night for dinner. We love to people watch wherever we go and it was very interesting watching in Fes. It's such a mix of Middle Eastern, African & European (in the minority) and that comes across in everything from people to the food and architecture.  The hotel is gorgeous, with it,s own internal courtyard with mosaic tiling everywhere, walls & floors and carved timber roofs, fountain, plunge pool, lemon tree and tea rooms, it's a really quiet and peaceful place away from the madness of the streets outside.  One sound it couldn't keep out was the call to prayer at 4am this morning!  It was bad enough when one mosque got it's sound system cranked up but when once a few of them got started it was quite a cacophony!  The other thing that's a bit rioutous is our room decoration! Check out the photo!

Day 4 - Paris to Casablanca

Last day in Paris, boo. We wandered around enjoying the sun and scenery, followed by luch with the Parisiens sitting right on the footpath.

The flight to Morocco was via EasyJet, oh boy how the mighty have fallen. It actually wasn't any worse than say Virgin at home but it certainly wasn't an enjoyable experience.

Casablanca, scene of the famous movie that bears its name, however our experience of it was not quite so romantic. Basically, it seems to be a cramped, dirty and relatively poor city, full of beggars, people selling goods right from the footpath and raffertys rules on the roads. (Actually, Rafferys  Rules on the road seems to work really quite well, no lines, signs or traffic lights, just take your turn and toot your horn to let others know it is.)

We spent a good hour trying to find somewhere decent to eat and quickly found that it seems no one eats here and every establishment that looks like a restaurant is full of men drinking coffee and eating ice cream! There were no women dining anywhere, barring a table full of tourists! Found a suitably tacky place to eat where if you asked for the couscous the waiter confirmed your order of tagine. When you clarified, by pointing at cous cous on the menu, he clarified that you are in fact having tagine!  Same happened with vin blanc, back came the waiters confirmation of vin rouge! And indeed, it was a fine rouge too, straight from the famous region of Meknes. Never heard of it!? Surely you have, Meknes, Morocco, a fine wine region it is too ;-)

Day 3 - Pure Indulgence

We planned nothing for today other than to enjoy the hotel facilities and each other's company and we started well. Our first meal in the gorgeous Le Cinq restaurant and you can't help but be a bit goggle eyed at the opulence of everything.

We then ventured into Hediard (still technically within the hotel) and it's  like going into a chocolate box and then the most up market deli you've ever dreamed of, with the very finest of gourmet food.  From simple things to the most perfect strawberries you have ever seen to a temperature controlled wine room with a silver chest of champagne, to an incredible choice of cavier, foie gras and delicacies we just can't get at home.  The nice thing was, the staff were so nice to us; they just loved that we came from Australia (our accent must sound weird to them) and we still haven't met one of those famously arrogant Frenchmen. 

So we took our little box of chocolates back to the hotel for later enjoyment and went down to the spa.  Now don't forget, we're in Paris, in the golden triangle no less, where space is a gold bullion per square inch (well, you get the picture) and this spa is just huge and indescribably impecably and immaculately beautiful and relaxing. We'll try to let the photos show the luxuriousness of this retreat under the grounds of our hotel http://www.fourseasons.com/fr/paris/ but it was a wonderfully, relaxing and indulgent experience and while we were enjoying that, the lovely little pixies that come to visit our hotel room (they even put a book mark in my book for me one night, they think of everything!) left us a bottle of champagne and lovely chocolate gataeux, the perfect match for our Hediard choccies!

Finally dinner was planned for Le Cinq and we did have high hopes for dinner that weren't quite met.  However; I will say, we've been eating terribly rich food from petit dejuener to dinner as is typical for France, so perhaps we were a little fooded out as headed down for another French meal in Le Cinq.

Day 2 - Shopping Shopping Shopping

Spent the day wandering Printemps, Galleries Lafayette and Rue St Honour. Surely every designer that exists is represented here, and nothing but designer labels. One could do some serious credit card damage here without any provocation.

Fortunately we resisted most of the temptations and left with only shoes and perfumes. Neither of these establishments could match the opulence of Le Bon Marche which was so beautiful, they wouldn't even allow us to take a photo. Everything was bespoke pieces of artwork, lighting by Philippe Stark and many artists, many of the pieces one-offs.

Day 1 - Belle Paris

Wow, we never tire of this city. We were up at about 5:30am thanks to jet lag but used the time to capture photos of the Eiffel Tower (from the end of our bed!) as dawn broke. A perfect sunny spring day in Paris. We set-off early on foot with no particular destination in mind, we've found that the best way to experience Paris is to just start walking and see what you discover. Traditional French breakfast was in a gorgeous old bistro well off the tourist track.

Then we found ourselves in St Germaine, a very trendy suburb with gorgeous architecture. Here we stopped for another Coffee sitting on the street enjoying the sunshine. Soon after we joined seemingly half of Paris in the Jardins de Luxembourg, a beautiful large park near the centre of town. Finally a quiet stroll anong the Seine river, with a baguette for lunch on one of the bridges over the river. Passing by the river barges we spot 2 French men on  their deck, enthralled in a game of chess, glass of pinot in hand (we could tell; they had the correct glasses!) and dog lying at their feet, picture of serenity.

First stop Doha

We're now enjoying piped bird song music! in the lavish 'premium termial' at Doha. Like Dubai, thee view consists of a lot of sand and not a lot else to speak of...

The flight was great, business class on Qatar was very nearly as spacious as first class on Emirates and the plane was a brand spanking new 777.

Only another 11 hours to go until we're in Paris. Over and out.