Morocco (20-26 August 2013)

20 August: After the 9 hour - 1000 km drive from Barcelona to a small pueblo south of Granada on the foothills of the Sierra Nevada (Durcal), we crashed out in some basic accommodation after knocking back a few cold ones and the kids going nuts making cubbies and playing soccer that did not seem to overly disturb the other temporary inhabitants of the inn (it was a long time in the car so kids had an over-supply of energy to dissipate! Fortunately Spanish culture makes large allowances for noisy children at any time of day/night at any place).

21 August: The next morning I got up early to make the 1 hour windy mountain drive to Capi (near Pampa) from our accommodation in Durcal because we had mistakenly left an important item during our last week's departure from Pampa. The fam sleeped in then had a swim in the pool prior to my return. Afterwards, we headed down to Costa del Sol (near Marbella-Estepona) for a swim and lunch on the beach. Finally rolled into my cousin Marie's pad in La Linea around 5 pm and all us Griswolds were all pretty much COMPLETELY shattered from the previous day-n-half car/travel-related activities. Around 8 pm Paul suggested to me that we go get ferry tickets for the ferry crossing from Tarifa (southernmost point in Spain) to Tangier, Morocco we were planning for the next day. As I was acquiring our tickets, the purveyor of the ferry tickets notified Paul that there were two additional ferries put on for midnight and 2 am (in 4 and 6 hours, respectively). Paul loves to go to his place in Morocco, and immediately saw an opportunity to maximize time spent on the African continent, which manifested itself in a singular goal to get his family of 4 and mine of 5 over to Morocco prior to sunrise the next day. I thought he had nil chance of getting the mandatory approval from Marie and Robin, but his sheer enthusiasm and passion was analogous to a tsunami that brought along everything in its path. By 10 pm the cars were loaded and we had embarked on the 40 minute drive to Tarifa. As it turned out the midnight ferry was cancelled so it was the 2 am ferry for us. To wile away the time, first we had dinner at a nice pizza joint in Tarifa. Here's a pic of the Spaniards that comprised our touring party.

22 August: Well we got on the 2 am ferry. Paul, Mary, Ismael and Tania boarded in their car as they were taking it across to Morocco, they had a car pass that included a family so to save money Sam became part of their family. We left our car in Tarifa as the rental was not valid across the Strait on African soil. Here's a pic of them with the stow-away in their car as they were boarding the ferry.

Paul, Robsie and Luca on the back deck of the ferry around 3:30 am as we near the port of Tangiers.

The ferry had very few folks on board, and I think Paul's car may have been 1 of 5 or so that made the crossing. Apparently the unscheduled additional ferries at 0000 and 0200 were to get people from Morocco back to Europe after the end of holidays (primarily Moroccans returning to their homes in Europe). Our ferry needed to be back in Tangiers to get the next lot back to European soil early in the morning.

Next morning we had a beautiful view from Paul & Mari's balcony towards the azure blue waters of the Atlantic ocean. However, it did take a few cups of coffee to cut through the haze in our heads to truly start to appreciate the view. The accommodation complex has two swimming pools in which the five kids (and 4 adults) enjoyed from morning to evening when not on excursions.

By the way, this stop sign illustrates were 'not in Kansas anymore Toto'...

Somehow we mustered enough energy to get over to the nearby town of Asilah. Asilah is a art-eests mecca with many shops and galleries. First, we had a wander down the main drag, lots of street vendors, shops and general craziness. Luca immediately found an appropriate street stand with all sorts of toys.

The medina (the old walled off section of the town) is classic with narrow winding streets, white-washed building primarily outlined in blue. First thing we encountered there was an amazing portable cart with a myriad of types of nuts. Here's Robsie and the kids selecting types to sample and bartering away.

Here's a shot of several of us taking a bit of a rest during our wandering on this first day in Morocco.

A cool window in the medina...

A cool door in the medina...

An typical example of the white-blue colour city-look thing of Asilah...

A cool mural behind Frankie and me. There was also sorts of great murals all over the place, aka not graffiti but art suitable for the 'pool room'... Asilah was the only place we have encountered so far with such marvelous art work, a la mural style, without any great amount of graffiti. Check out Paul's facebook page as he went crazy photo documenting them.

We made it out to the bit of the medina that juts out into the Atlantic, and there was a bunch of young lads (10-16 years old) doing some crazy dives (I managed to catch one in the act in the pic below). Some of the holes between the rocks these lads were diving into had a very low tolerance for error, 10-15 m drop into a 2 m diameter hole... Fortunately no mishaps over the duration of our viewing.

Frankie in front of the seafood restaurant we went to for lunch, having a look at which fish she wants to be cooked up for the arvo meal.

After lunch kids going nuts in typical Mediterranean style WITHIN THE RESTAURANT... Doesn't matter if your in Spain or Morocco, the populace has an amazing (and refreshing) tolerance to kids running amok! It will be difficult to re-train them to culture-appropriate behaviour when we leave the Med!

Frankie and Sam conversing with some of the inhabitants along the path to the beach for a bit of sunset chilling out in front of our accommodation.

The beach was substantially less crowded and very wide here, and there was the occasional camel wandering down the beach to boot!

 

23 August: Well that was a lot of activity during the previous day on the heels of our early morning arrival. The next day the kids had a lot of pool action. Robsie managed to get away for a refreshing dip in the Atlantic sans kids, this is a shot of her returning walking up the path.

All of the cousins in a good mood with the good night's rest!

For the evening meal we had a fantastic culinary experience at a traditional high end restaurant (#1 in Asilah several years running!). Here's a shot of a typical meal presentation...

And then went for a nice evening shop in the medina of Asilah, which was substantially more comfortable than the previous day's hot afternoon sojourn. Here's Luca having a look at a wide array of shoes.

24 August: Today another lazy morning by the pool and then off to Tangiers. On the drive over Robsie took this shot of young lads (10-14years old) jumping off and on this cement truck. Clearly these boys were young and accustomed to this as a mode of getting around the city, much to the disdain of the drivers of these vehicles. Shortly after the photo these boys were chased off in an unseemly manner by the driver of this cement truck in front of our eyes, which took some explaining to our kids...

  

Moroccan flag...

 

 

Petrol outlet...

Mosque tower...

Cool mural and traditional dress...

All reminders of some of the differences between this northern African country with Spain a mere few kilometres across the Strait. BTW driving was nuts in Tangiers, particularly the busy round-abouts. I didn't get much traction in these seemingly chaotic traffic jungles until I started using the car horn and making wild gestures in a similar manner to everyone else, viz a viz 'when in Morocco, do as the Moroccans do!'. We then had a nice lunch in a seafood restaurant.

Then a quick play and chill out in a nice plaza-park area near the port.

 And then made a mad dash back to the beach for sunset camel riding.

 

25 August: Next day was packing up and a meal at a Moroccan restaurant that served very large portions (most of the restaurants we went to Morocco catered for westerners). I had a look at the salad, and said what the heck, ate it, and all the Griswolds paid the price in regards to toilet matters over the ensuing week or so. As mentioned previously, lots of Moroccans were returning to their homes in Europe after their annual vacations so the ferry from Tangiers to Tarifa was chockers in terms of cars. The Griswolds jumped right onto the first ferry across, had dinner in Tarifa and were back to Paul and Mari's over a couple of hours. Here we are during that dinner somewhat happier than our beleaguered relatives on the other side of the Strait waiting in the car line (we walked on sans car).

 

26 August: Luckily my tio Paco and tia Marikita were looking after Paul & Mari's house while we were away so they were there (i.e. no house to break into), and we got the kids straight into bed. By the way my Tio and Tia were the one's who cooked that paella on 28 July, and here's a photo of them outside of their apartment (I said I would get their pictures into the blog at some point previously). Also had a chance to say my 'see ya later, until next time' with my tio and two tias before our departure the next day for Madrid the next day before our departure (great catch-up).

Unfortunately for Paul, Mari, Ismael and Tanya they had to wait for the 2 am ferry and did not get back to their house until 3:30 am or so. Early morning start on Thursday and early morning finish on Monday for them...

The kids had a great time in Morocco, and more importantly from our perspective got a small introduction and appreciation to northern African culture. Thanks for taking us over prima and Paul, we had a great time.

 

Spain #4: Barcelona [Messi Town!] (13-20 August 2013)

Many apologies to the legions of Oz Griswold Blogger followers (all 2 of you…) for what is now a 1 month delay between the date of this posting and the first of the photos in this posting. As mentioned previously, I will continue to endeavor to try to keep the blog more up-to-date, but it is difficult, primarily because of my lack of discipline… At the time of this posting, we have just arrived in Greece after 2 amazing months in Spain. This posting is dedicated to our sojourn to the northeastern sector of Spain. The main 'reason' for an excursion to this region you may ask? A 7 year old boy's fascination (bordering on obsession!) with arguably the past decade's most amazing sporting professional club, FC Barcelona.

13 August: Well our time in Pampa came to an end, and after some goodbyes to several neighbors and a host of domesticated animals we made off for Barcelona. We broke up the trip by stopping in Valencia. A beautiful city where our late afternoon arrival allowed sufficient time to check out the ciudad's 'el centro antiguo'. Firstly, a picture of the Griswold's in front of the enormous Estadio de Toros in Valencia. We didn't watch any bullfights though the kids were very curious about the tradition.  

The city had a good night life feel, clearly Robsie and I couldn't sample it properly because of our uh, youngish companions. Perhaps next time... 

14 August: During the evening of the 13th after the kids went to sleep, Robsie and I were perusing a coffee table book of Valencia in the hotel apartment, and became aware of an amazing district that we had to check out prior to leaving this city. The old river that used to go through the centre of town has been diverted (presumably because of flooding issues). A large urban park has been created along the old river bed and accompanying floodplain that is dotted with an amazing suite of buildings that include an aquarium, museum, concert hall and a myriad of other civic functions. Here is a sampling of the buildings we meandered around in this former Valencian riverbed prior to departing for our primary destination of Barcelona.

15 August: We arrived in Barcelona on the 14th to a great flat in the barrio of Poble Sec. Poble Sec is one of the 'happening' areas in Barca, known for culinary (about 1 new restaurant per week), multi-cultural-ness, but out of the tourist scene (which can be overwhelming in Barca) aspects.

Firstly, we loved the metro as generally it seemed we could get anywhere within about 200 m from a metro station...

Of course, the first obligatory stop was the outlandish (for a cathedral that is) Gaudi designed Sagrada Familia. We opted out of the tour as we did not come prepared with internet tickets in hand, and the line was about half a km long. Let's go eat lunch instead...

Next obligatory Gaudi stop... Yep, Parc Guell! Well its on the elevated end of town, given our experience (and fitness) from our recent Pampa days, we were expecting a challenging hike. But alas the Barca city planners (and implementers) devised a cascade of upwards escalators to assist the city slickers (and somewhat chunky tourists) to attain the heady heights of the park.

Here are the kids in a weird architectural cusp in the Gaudi cavey thingy me-bob...

And the kids on the weird Gaudi lizard fountain thingy me-bob (took a bit of effort to fling off all the tourists for this pic BTW!).

16 August: So Robsie ordered online tickets for the opening match of FC Barcelona whilst we were in Pampa, and we had instructed for them to be couriered to our temporary flat address in Poble Sec. Well the tickets got there on Thursday while we were in Valencia in transit to Barca! So during the ensuing phone conversation I had (from a hotel room in Valencia) with the courier bloke-man-dude (at the Poble Sec [Barca] flat address), I thought the arrangement was for the tickets to be re-dropped off on 15 August (the next day) at the Barca flat (when we would be there). Unfortunately, the courier misunderstood 16 August (mis-communicado, capiche), so we (especially Sammy) were quite relieved once we had the tickets in hand.

 

We were unshackled from our premises with the arrival of the FC Barca tickets, so off to check out more Barca sites. First taking the teleferico (cable car) to Montjuic, and wandering around the castle up on top of this elevated coastal position of Barca.

An example (of a plethora) of weird sculptures found all throughout Barcelona that for our purposes also served as a sort of distributed playground around the city for the kids (probably not what the art-eests had in mind!). 

The girls bought a couple of flamenco dresses and proceeded to gallivant around town with their newly acquired wares. Many a look from the local Catalans of the girls with their Andalucian threads! Their dresses were sufficiently demure to allow them to enter the traditional old cathedral (not the Sagrada Familia, but the gothic-y one in the old section of town), but Robsie could NOT as her shorts were to short and here shoulders were bare (note this wasn't an issue at the other cathedral we visited in Leon a couple of weeks later). 

 

17 August: So it was time to take a break from the city life and check out Costa Brava northeast of Barca. We chose a small beach called AguaBlava purported to be beautiful with forest to the water's edge. It was beautiful indeed, but weekend crowds (many French due to proximity with border) put our recently developed skills to acquire several square metres at the water's edge in such crowded circumstances to the test. Here's a pic of the kids messing around some large rocks near the beach (in the background), and the kids entering aqua blue 10+ m depth water as they exit the slide from one of the peddle-o-thingy's you rent for an hour or so with a slide... 

18 August: Well it's FCB-day today (FC Barcelona's opening La Liga game to try to win a 4th La Liga over the past 5 seasons), and before heading off to the game we need to fill up with a good meal at a Poble Sec 'placa' (catalon for plaza). Found a nice cozy place and the food presentation was nice. Afterwards a pic of the crew walking back towards the flat on the pedestrian only street in which it is located (BTW this is shoulder to shoulder with people EVERY evening, great vibe). The 3rd photo is our flat (1st floor above ground level) with a café/bar below. In addition to being rather spacious, this flat also had a rather largish courtyard, both features rare in central Barca.

 

Here are 2 of the 3 kids dressed up with appropriate gear for the FCB game. Sam has on the home game uniform and Frankie has last year's away game uniform. We got an early start (3 hours before game) to avoid crowd's on the metro and getting into the stadium. This was a good strategy for catching the metro.

The FC Barcelona grounds, Estadio Camp Nou, is holy ground to legions of soccer fans around the world. It is purported to be the largest capacity soccer stadium in Europe. At full capacity it is just a few hundred people shy of 100,000. Here are the kids emulating a kick of one of the numerous sculptures of past champions that ring the stadium.

We're in Camp Nou now, early and prior to the crowds.

  

We didn't have the best tickets in the stadium, namely the highest row in the whole stadium. However, it turned out to be a very good thing, as the assortment of safety bars and the final walking lane behind the last row provided ample entertainment possibilities for Francesca and Luca after they lost interest in the game after about 5 minutes from the start. Also the views of the city were spectacular from this elevated vantage point.

Sammy and I unveiling the FC Barcelona flag to demonstrate our support for the home side.

The 'great one' about to take a corner kick. Messi scored two goals in the opening game and is once again on top of the La Liga goal kicker list. Sammy, Robsie and I were completely amazed by the athleticism and skills of all the players on the FC Barcelona side. I have never seen such display of sheer unadulterated sporting athleticism and skill in a live setting. This comment that I made to many a Spaniard generally garnered a reply of the following ilk:

"What do you expect with the amount of $$ FCB spend on their team?"

Fair point...

FCB thrashed their opening La Liga season opponents 7-0, we didn't mine though, lots of classy goals were scored.

BTW, the biggest soccer money deal ever was completed during our time in Spain. Real Madrid acquired Welsh winger Gareth Bale from Tottenham for an unprecedented $136 million AUD over 6-years. Many a question has been raised, given the, ur, uh, rather poor state of the economy in Spain specifically, and Europe generally, with this sort of money flowing around in let's be candid, not core human necessity functions...

 

Robsie and Sammy estimated that at kick-off there were probably about 60,000 people for the opening game against a pretty weak side (Levante, the weakest of the two Valencian team's currently in the Primera League).

 Proof that Robise was at the game.

After the game the metro was chockers, so we found a place to have a bite and a drink. It also had a fantastic glass roof over a bar sort of thing, which also served as a good kip (nap) location as Luca is illustrating. Finally got back to the flat after a fantastic professional sporting experience.

19 August: Easy day today with the plan simply to enjoy the market in Barca. Another weird Barca sculpture on the way to the market.

The market had an myriad of foods such as seafood...

Fruit and fruit drinks...

Smelly bacalao...

Choice take-away paper cones of jamon... All in all a great time at the market and generally in Barca to wind up our stay.

20 August: Departure from Barca day. Kids having a bit of a kick on the street in front of the flat waiting for me to try to navigate the car to pick up all the gear.

We did a marathon trip from Barcelona to Granada on this day (~1000 km). Luca had the right idea to shorten the trip, unfortunately for Robsie and me, her two siblings did not follow suit.