Tangier is about 4 hours north of Rabat by train, and the first class ticket costs about $15. On Friday after my Darija lesson, I hopped on the train and headed north to explore. This was my view at dinner, in a riad near the top of the Medina at the Kasbah, overlooking the old port. There was only a single French family dining when I arrived, and when they left, a group of Argentinians arrived. So I got some great practice overhearing conversation in two languages! While this seems unusual for Americans, it is absolutely common here. People speak many languages, no matter what their language of conversational choice is. So you can never assume that you are saying something that everyone around you doesn't understand! My hotel-- recently renovated, but a classic French hotel from the 19th century, the Grand Villa de France. A heated room, loads of hot water in the bath, a flatscreen TV on which to watch French language broadcasts, a super comfy bed-- and a view over the Medina and out to the sea. Lux and lovely!! View from my window. I visited the American Legation, which was the first US Embassy in the world-- remember, Morocco was the first country to recognize the United States in 1777?-- and a wonderful Museum of the Kashbah, which had a great display of the history of the people of Tangier from pre-historic times to the international zone that it was in World War II. As a former sultan's palace, it also had some spectacular architecture and gardens. I visited the Medina souks and tried to take a few more surreptitious photos, and I wandered down to the beachfront (where there is an actual sandy beach) along the corniche. I enjoyed really great food-- the breakfast buffet at the hotel was a symphony of fruits, nuts, and French pastries-- and I had my favorite dinner so far in Morocco at a seafood restaurant where there is no menu. Just come in, sit down, and let them bring you the prix-fixe whatever-is-freshest menu of the day. There are some pictures below of all that. I have also created a page here on the website where I uploaded a few of the other images that I took of the day. Click on the three little white lines at the top right of this page, and a drop-down menu will appear of the other pages on the site. (This is for you Dad.) There is now a page called Tangier with more photographs. One last cool thing: on the train ride back, there were 3 American college students on study abroad in my compartment, and one of them is from the same small college where I went! We were both quite excited to meet another person who had even heard of Ohio Wesleyan, so we took a picture of ourselves! It's on the Picture of the Day page. Minaret at the entrance to the Medina from Nouvelle Ville. Multi-cultural movie theater on the Grand Socco. La la Land, Adios Carmen, Fils de Pub Interior courtyard of the American Legation. Window at the Legation Olives-- see the reddish-purple ones in the back row? Yum! Look! Prepared, packaged veggies! Babouches-- traditional leather slippers; these are for women, and children. I am wearing one of these pairs right now as I blog! On the way up the hill to the Kasbah. Tangier's medina has much steeper streets than Rabat's! Saturday at noon: school is letting out for the day. Note the winter jackets they kids are wearing. Sultan's palace courtyard at the Kasbah Museum Ceiling of one of the rooms in the palace. Turns out good architectural photography is difficult!! This is really 3-D, like a Ryan Homes coffered ceiling on steroids. A wall in one of the rooms. Ceramic mosaic, carved plaster, and I don't even know how they did that wood! Gardens within the palace. Garden gate to a terrace overlooking the Mediterranean Enjoying the sun and the view from one of the hotel terraces Afternoon ferry arriving from Spain A dusk stroll while waiting for my chosen restaurant to open for dinner, brought me to a sandy beach right in the heart of downtown Tangier. (If you were to look 180 degrees away from here, you'd see a lot of traffic businesses, and high rise hotels and apartments.) "Well, this is something unexpected," I thought when I realized there were camels waiting to take you for a ride. This is why you should never be without your camera in this country! Now for my fantastic prix-fixe dinner. First course: still warm toasted walnuts, almonds, and other nuts, three kinds of bread, hot peppers, and olives accompanied the fish soup. No, that is not wine in the glass. This is a Muslim country, and the only place I've seen wine was in the piano bar of the Grand Villa de France. This is a fruit punch with about 10 kinds of fruits juiced and mixed. Wonderful, and the glass kept getting re-filled. Second course: "fruit de mer" (seafood) mixture, onions, spinach in a searing hot little tajine. Main course: some kind of fish (turbot maybe??) grilled and seasoned with Moroccan spices, most especially cumin. And for good measure, there was a "brochette" of some other kind of fish. And, dessert: this was just absolutely the best! Seasonal strawberries and raspberries, with a nut, honey and maybe sugar topping. There's a bowl of the sugared nuts back there in the background if I needed more. Notice the rather rustic wooden utensils. The owner came by my table at the end and gave me two sets of utensils to take home as "souvenirs". And no, it wasn't because I was snapping pictures of my food. Everyone was! And I'll end with a picture of the restaurant itself, in case you ever want to go there: Saveur de Poisson.
1 Comment
Ahlam
3/3/2017 06:08:37 am
Beautiful shots! Enjoyed reading it :)
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Marcie StutzmanTeacher, Researcher, Adventurer, Explorer; Maybe crazy; Possibly too old for this Archives
October 2018
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