An Unplanned Year

We took a regular train from Marrakesh to Casablanca.

We stayed in Casablanca overnight, caught up on some admin and visited the saddest piscine ever. Our hotel has a pool in the basement. It is described as “…a universe dedicated solely to your well-being…with a 6 step massage circuit.”. We had asked at check-in  about towels and were assured they were available at the pool. We descended. No towels, and no staff. Kevin went and asked the guy again, he said he’d bring some down. So we got in the tepid pool, and avoiding all the broken tiles, we tried every step of the massage circuit. Not one worked, there wasn’t a single bubble to be had.

We hung around another 5 minutes waiting for towels to arrive. They never did. So we left the pool, shook as best we could and dripped our way back to our room to shower off whatever we might have caught from the pool. We wouldn’t have returned to this hotel if they hadn’t been so nice about storing our additional bags whilst we were on the tour! Win some / lose some.

When we went out for dinner – gosh it was quiet. The normally busy thoroughfares of Casablanca were Covid quiet / apocalypse empty. It was quite eerie! Everyone was at iftar or break fast. Very different to the medina in Marrakesh the night before.

Today we took an express train to Tangier where we’ll stay for 4 nights.

This was intended to be a rest and recover stop before we start the main event in Europe on 1st March.

After arriving, it feels a bit exciting and strange to be able to see Spain from Morocco, or to see Europe from Africa!

We wandered around the Kasbah Museum, museum of Contemporary Art, walked from Bab al Bahr to Dar Al-Baroud Tower, through the fort museum and then through the Medina back to our hotel.

In the Medina we came across cross a street where there were multiple workshops where men were making ribbons of trimming for garments. The place their thread holders out in the street, then wind and we’ve the threads to make the trim.

Europe planning…?

Some car delivery date uncertainty (no issues, just “Spanish time”) has us unable to actually book anything for our first week in Spain! Will we be in Algeciras (that was always intended just as a launch point) for a gew days? If so, how could we make the most of that time?

Or will the car be ready in time? In that case, should we go left to Andalucia and Portugal and perhaps avoid incoming bad weather or right to Granada and eastern Spain, but potentially miss Portugal completely as it would require a 1000km detour!

Decisions, decisions, but also no decisions because who knows!!

This year was to be a test of our ability to NOT plan and it is from day 1!  I have probably never not known where I will be in 5 days…