Morocco - some of our highlights

I didn't get chance to blog on our last day in Marrakech. We had a nice quiet day just having a wander around the bits we'd missed. We visited the Musee De Marrakech which I didn't have particularly high hopes for but actually turned out to be one of the highlights of our trip - not so much for what was in it (I don't think I even looked at the exhibits when I think about it), but more for the architecture. It was quite similar to the Palace but it just had a bit more about it I thought. Right at the centre was a huge room with three fountains in the middle of a huge mosaic floor surrounded by four smaller rooms with lovely ornate doorways and stained glass in the arches above. There were also lovely mosaic water features in the walls - one on each corner. There was no water in them anymore but you could really imagine the effect it would have had in the time that it did.

One of the four mosaic water features in Musee De Marrakech

Part of the mosaic floor in the museum

One of the stained glass windows

The length of the main room in the museum. This photo really doesn't do it justice - the mosaic floor was amazing!

One of the lovely door arches - I love all the detailed carving

In the museum, we saw an exhibition by a Californian based artist called Layla Fanucci whose work I love. She does amazing cityscapes - they look kind of like when you were young and you coloured a piece of paper with wax crayons and then painted over it in black ink and scratched a pattern out. Remember? Like that... but good. The mix of colours she uses is really eye catching and her black ink sketches on top are very striking.

After lunch, we visited the two free gardens in the city. The first one was full of rose bushes and orange trees growing in a grid pattern with little gravelled paths and benches running through them. Down the middle of the garden was a long water feature which spanned the length of the park with a huge fountain in the middle. the whole place was in quite a state of disrepair so there was no water in the fountains. There was a scruffy little stray dog trying to find a bit of shade to lay in. I felt sorry for him because he had no one to love him... but we saw him again later running down the street with a load of other dogs in all different colours and sizes so he obviously was part of a family after all which made my day! It was like a scene out of Hotel for Dogs!

The other garden we visited was a Cyber Park. The park has little internet stations where kids (well, anyone) can go and use the internet on an in built computer. There is also free wi-fi throughout the park so we were able to get the internet on Paul's Ipod and we saw other people doing the same. I thought the whole thing was a brilliant idea - it was free to get in and the computers were free so even kids who have nothing could go in and learn to use a computer and look on the internet. A great way to keep them out of mischief - much better than sitting in a bus stop with a bottle of cider and a packet of cigarettes like they do here! There was a huge water feature in the middle and gorgeous azure blue - again, no water!

You can't really see the lovely blue-green in the fountain here

One of the Cyber pods in the Cyber Park

A few of my favourite things:

1) Freshly squeezed orange juice that tastes like sunshine in a glass and seeing the little pyramids of oranges stacked up on the juice mans carts.

One of the many juice sellers in the Medina

2) The call to prayer - you don't just hear one voice, but within seconds of each other, you begin to hear other local calls, all saying something slightly different ad all at different volumes. When they are all going together, it sounds like cattle mooing in the mountains. I found the sound really calming.

The Minaret just outside the main square - this is where the booming voice of the call to prayer comes from!

3) Olives - marinaded in chilli and corriander - delicious with a capital D

4) All the mosaics - it reminded me of patchwork everywhere I looked

5) The unexpected smell of spices as we rounded the corner of what seemed to be a deserted street

6) Dipping my feet in the hotel pool to cool off

The hotel pool, shaded by large palms.

7) Clear blue skies

8) The sound of drums in the square at night

9) Seeing an old man stroking his donkey as it pulled him and his cart along - the first sign of affection towards an animal that we saw while we were there.

10) Moroccan pancakes at breakfast with Cactus flower honey

I've been through and added pictures to my other Morocco posts, be sure to flick back through and have a look!

I hope you've enjoyed my Moroccan adventure!