Morocco

Marrakech markets are quite insane. There are snake charmers, palm readers, lots of spices and dried fruits and even more orange juice. There are also heaps of people that will hassle you out, but there's even a few funny ones to. I had one kid call out that they were selling 'fish and chips' in their stall which was obviously only selling spices. Anyway, I replied that I wasn't English and he quickly changed his mind and told me they were selling Kangaroo. haha

Here's a pic of one of the nicer looking shops that you would see on a postcard:)

We also saw this little guy trying to escape. And guess what? He made it! I think I even saw him at the airport as there was a very similar looking tortoise in one of the pot plants. Seriously.

Anyway, this is a picture of Nate standing outside our riad. You can probably hardly believe it's nice inside, but it was!

After Croatia I didn't think I would find another place with more cats. Well Marrakech is a big contender, but they had kittens. Millions of them! Here's a few, but there were at least 10 living in the streets near us.

Morocco also has lots of tagines. Lots. Although we only got couscous with one meal so I think I've been lied to about Moroccans eating couscous.

As we only had 4 days in Morocco I had booked a 3 day 4WD tour. It was good as we got to see a lot in a small amount of time, and I didn't have to drive. Anyway, as soon as we got out of Marrakech there was heaps of little shops selling fossils and rocks.

Some of the stuff was quite cool although the prices varied wildly.

We also went to a famous Kasbah where they have filmed movies like Lawrence of Arabia. It's called Ait Benhaddou and if you check the link you can see all the movies filmed there. It was pretty cool and is also a UNESCO World Heritage site (I told you we've been to a few!). We also saw a backlot in the middle of nowhere. There was an entire castle and also heaps of stuff for the Mummy movies too.

Anyway, here's a baby camel that I saw. How cute:)

The next day we went out to the Sahara Desert (although Nate and I are not convinced but we don't have a GPS to prove anything). Anyway, they had sand dunes and it was hot so who are we to argue. We went on a camel trek to our camp site and they gave us some head scarf things to wear. Apparently they had heaps of dark blue ones but Nate ended up with bright purple. He rocked it though...

We stopped along the way so people could sand board if they wanted to. And I think everyone did except us. haha.

Here's a picture of us on our camels while we were on our trek to our camp site(with no showers!). I stank like a dirty camel by the time we got there and still had to endure driving back to Marrakech the next day feeling filthy.

And here's a picture of Nate with one of the camels in the morning. It was pretty scary. I was convinced this one hated me and was on the verge of spitting.

Jerez

For those of you who haven't linked the first and second pictures, yes the ladder up against the glass in the first picture is so mice can drink out of the wineglass.

What isn't immediately evident is a) what is in the glass b) where the wineglass is and c) how the mice fill a glass and erect a ladder to drink out of it. Let's deal with these answers one by one.

a) Sherry. To be precise, I believe it is Oloroso sherry, though it is possibly Amontillado.

b) The wine glass is on the floor. (It's the floor of one of the Tio Pepe barrel aging warehouses in Jerez)

c) I really hope you weren't asking yourself such a silly question. The story goes that one of the old winemakers found out that the mice in the warehouse liked sweet sherry, so he started the tradition of leaving a glass out for them. The tour guide said there's youtube videos of the mice actually drinking, if that's something that interests you.

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Ok, onto the post proper. Jerez is to sherry what Porto is to port i.e. there is no other place in the world with the right to make a wine and call it sherry. In fact, the Spanish for sherry is 'vino de Jerez'. We took a day trip out there and found it was similar to many other wine regions in Europe: you can make an appointment or you can take a cellar tour, but rarely can you just turn up and taste.

Fortunately the first winery we went to that wasn't appointment only was one of the rare breed where you can just pay them some money and drink. Some of you may recognise the Sandman's logo from our Porto photos, as it's also a company that makes Port.

The other we visited was Tio Pepe and we had to take a tour. But it was at least a little interesting because the Sherry making process is fairly unique, and Tio Pepe has quite a collection of autographed barrels.


















Who is that masked man???











Mmmmmm Alcohol.....



OLE!!

Sevilla

Seville. Well this is going to be a pretty short posting. There's just not all that much to do in Seville except for museums, architecture, tapas and bullfights. The first two on that list aren't really our scene, the third one wasn't as good as it was in Barcelona and the fourth one... well we tried it but it turns out watching bulls being slaughtered isn't that pleasant an experience.

One thing we did do while we were in Seville was go to Jerez. See the next post!

Barcelona

Next stop, Barcelona! What a great city. Heaps of great bars, restaurants and just a great vibe except for the serious threat of pick-pockets. Hi Kiran if you're reading:)

Here's a picture of Nate with one of the many random sculptures around the city. It's kinda like Berlin here with all the cool art. Imagine if you put this in Perth! People would be carrying on about wasting tax payers' money forever. People still hate the Bell Tower right? Haha

Here's a picture of Barcelona's number one tourist attraction which they are still trying to finish apparently.

We also walked around to see a bit more of Gaudi's stuff. Does this city have a lot to thank that guy for?! Here's a picture at Park Guell...

Anyway the best thing to do in Spain is probably eat tapas so here we go. This one is Salmon, Sashimi style...

Cured tuna. Absolutely amazing...


Some green stuff...

Scallops...


Cod fritters...


Iberian pork with green peppercorn sauce (and petals!)...

And Chocolate in three textures or some fancier sounding name. Chocolate ice-cream with chocolate sauce and a chocolate brownie, covered in olive oil. Interesting. Not bad. Would probably skip the olive oil next time.

We also did a day trip out to Sant Sadurni which is where they make Cava (the Spanish equivalent of Champagne). As per Champagne itself, everything closes down during the day for a few hours, and most things are only available by appointment so we ended up just doing the tour at Freixenet which is one of the largest producers. You may have seen the black bottle before?


Here's some pictures outside the winery. They had a car shaped like a bottle and a truck shaped like a cork. Genius!

Oh yeah, and we went to see the Magic Fountain too which is up at Montjuic. It's a fountain that has a light and music show at night. Pretty cool...

Avignon

After our 3 nights in Dijon we jumped on the train to Avignon. We only had a day there but it was a gorgeous little town. A great place for a weekender if you're in the area. They have a palace (of the popes) which looked pretty cool but I've seen enough palaces/castles/churches/cathedrals to last a lifetime! Here's a pic from the outside. We did go in to the wine cellar to do a Cote du Rhone wine tasting though:)

And they also have a bridge which is unfinished. It's the subject of a French nursery rhyme which according to wikipedia is a popular preset on Yamaha keyboards. haha. Anyway, here's a pic of the bridge. I didn't want to pay 13 Euros to go on it but it looked nice.

Anyway, historical stuff aside, they also had FOOD!!!! We went to a tartine bistro. A tartine is basically a piece of bread with something spread on it which sounds boring but in France it's super-delicious. I had eggplant and bacon and Nate had avocado and prawns (forgot to take pictures though!). But here's the cafe complete with a bike to make it look more French...

We also decided to go for some French cider as we hadn't tried any yet. It was from Brittany (the North-West) and came in a champagne bottle and was quite tasty. Not too oaky like some of the British ones (not the ones you get at the pub on tap but the more boutique ones!)

Then Nate got a Choco-Coco tart for dessert. With lollies!!

Oh and we also saw the cutest French Bulldog ever. He was in a pet grooming shop that we walked by and I just had to go in and pat him. The guy working there told me his name but it was something French that I don't remember. He was so cute though and very friendly. There are heaps of these in France and you never seem to see many in Australia. We also saw quite a few in Japan for some reason, but Japanese do love all things French.

Dijon & Beaune

So the next stop was Dijon which is famous for the mustard, however we found out that the mustard seeds actually all come from Canada! In fact most mustard seeds in the world are grown in West Canada. The style is Dijon though and it didn't stop them from selling mustard at every souvenir shop in town.

Anyway, not sure if this has been shown in Australia/UK or not but a while back Obama went out and ordered a burger. Yeah, a burger. And basically most of the US news channels televised this. We saw it on John Stewart's show where he recapped the coverage. One of the channels showed the footage for over five minutes with the most pathetic commentary ever. So now there is a Dijongate scandal because Obama like 'French (or Canadian' - depending how you look at it) mustard better than American mustard. They even edited out him asking for Dijon! Madness.

Anyway, mustard aside, we went for the wine! Dijon is part of Burgundy and they are famous for their wines. We took a day trip out to Beaune which is part of the Cote d'or region. Our first stop there was Marche aux vins (or 'wine market' in English). They had a cellar tour and tasting where you basically walked through the cellar and every so often there would be a barrell with a bottle on it. When you got to the bottle you just helped yourself. Nice! Also they used a tastevin instead of a tasting glass which was pretty cool. Here's one of our stops...

It took us a while to get around as I think there was about 15 wines to taste. And then there were some liquers at the end. Did you know that Creme de Cassis also originates from around here?

By this stage everything had closed for lunch (which is very common) so we had no choice but to have a two hour lunch. And there's no better place to do that than in France. I had 4 courses for €22 and Nate had 5 courses for €28 which we though was pretty good value.

To start with an amuse bouche...


Nate had salmon carpaccio...

And I had the escargot but we ended up sharing because the snails were so good.

For mains Nate had rabbit...

And I had Coq au vin with tagiatelle...

Then Nate got a cheese course which I obviously helped him eat...


And then for dessert there was that nougat ice thing again...

And Nate got something we can't remember but here's a picture...

Then we tasted some more wines and it was a pretty good day all up but I think I fell asleep on the train back to Dijon.

The next day we had a segway tour booked!! We had wanted to do one before but they'd always been over €50. This one was €16 for some weird reason. Then when we rocked up in the morning we were the only people on the tour! He asked if we wanted to do the historic part or go to the park so we opted for the park. After we got there he let us crank up to 15km per hour from the basic 6km per hour. He said he wouldn't usually let people do that so we were happy. Anyway, here's me on my segway...

We stopped at this man-made beach thing for a bit of a break. Here's Nate at the beach (there were heaps of planes leaving vapour trails in the sky so it looked cool).

After that he let us crank them up to 20km per hour and we went for a lap around the lake. It was so much fun! Nathanael reckons he wants to give up walking and just get a segway. As if! Anyway, here's a picture of Nate and his segway.