Marseille, February

Marseille, France

February, 2024

I am surprised that it is now the end of February.  I have been in France now since arriving in Marseille on the first.  My apartment and my landlords are excellent.  I have a small studio apartment in a small village on the outskirts of Marseille called Allauch which is pronounced “Alau”.  Allauch is a little more than a village and I would call it a suburb of Marseille.  However, it maintains the character of a village and, when I climb up the hill, becomes a true Provençal hamlet with a ruined fortress and small church. 

As in most of France there is no shortage of beautiful sites.  Marseille has seen its share of hard times but that seems to be its character.  Marseille is a working town.  Of course in the downtown area there are some fine boutiques but Marseille has little of the panache of Paris.  Marseille is doable, to me, Paris is not.  Marseille has been around for a long time.  The free museum of Marseille proves this as the ancient port, created by the Greeks and Romans, is open to the public.   Marseille is so old that most of the construction is new.  Having been through many wars, and many upheavals, the really old part of town had to be leveled and was replaced with more modern French architecture.  Five story building all with large windows, small balconies and full length shutters adorn the large avenues of the down town.  There are still remnants of the old city but I have yet to find a Medieval looking building.  The Panier district is the closest to it but the Panier district owns its own character in a kind of shabby chic.  The Old Port is the center of everything that is besides the main railroad station St. Charles.  From St. Charles one can find any number of trains, buses and airport shuttles to take one anywhere.  The Metro is simple with just two lines.  There are trams that branch out everywhere the Metro misses and buses ply the rest of the metropolitan area.  A full day pass on all the public transport is 5 Euros.  

Today is Sunday.   It rained today.  I have spent a day at the table on the computer.  Today the thoughts are of home.  It’s such a dichotomy when I travel.  I just love traveling and visiting interesting places yet at the same time I look forward to my home and the projects I have in store for me there. 

Before I left I bought a motorcycle, a motorcycle that I’ve been looking at from awhile.  A friend of mine was retiring and let me know he was selling it.  This bike is a BMW 650 Enduro.  Enduro is what I call it.  Nowadays the enduro is called an “adventure” bike.  It is a much lighter bike than I’ve had in a very long time.  During my last two trips to Latin America I have found the heavy motorcycle to be really difficult in the hilly mountain towns.  In traffic, with a loaded motorcycle stopping and starting can be exhausting.  They are fantastic on the highway but rough anywhere else.  I look forward to riding it down some back roads in Maine and wherever else it leads me.

 

Morocco Finale

January 31, 2024

Ferry Tangier Med, Morocco Algeciras, Spain

Train to Marseille

Yesterday’s events have clouded the fine last few days in Morocco.  I arrived at the Tangier Med Port after a strenuous uphill and thrilling downhill. I was drinking a celebratory coffee when notification came to me by email that my return trip was cancelled.  No more information given than that.  A few phone numbers were listed, none of which were operational.  The message said I could wait for the next ferry which would depart in 10 days.  That was it.  I had to rally but I was taken aback.  There was another ferry returning which left today for France but I had read bad things about it and they were gong to charge me twice what the other company (La Meridional) charged.  I already had a place to stay, nearby, for the night so there was no hurry.  I bought a ticket on one of the many companies that serve the Strait of Gibralter for a ferry leaving the next day.

I spent an interesting evening in a coffee shop across the way from my lodging.  Morocco was in the knockout round playing for the African Cup in football.  The room was packed with men.  All drinking coffee or tea.  Where I had been offered a seat was in the back amongst guys smoking a lot of hash.  They did not offer to which I was thankful.  Morocco played poorly and lost.  This was disappointing.

The next day I road my bike to the terminal.  It was bittersweet to be leaving Morocco.  I had had a really wonderful time in there.  The country is fascinating yet it is the people that make the place a joy.  I was always an outsider but was never made to feel total disrespect.  Getting lost in the Medina is a right of passage I think.  Before google maps it must have been a real event.  So many of the little alleys lead you on to nowhere.  It seems impossible not to be confused and directionless.  

As I write this I. Am on my way to France on a high speed train.  I was not allowed to put my bike on Spanish trains.  Some of the local will take them.  At the station in Algeciras I was told they would not let me take the bike on the train if it was not completely bagged.  I had to spend an extra night, find a plastic

bag and some tape.  I spent about two hours in a 20 Euro pension taking the entire bike apart and trying to safely put the bike in two huge bags I found at a store that sold everything you could imagine.  The bags have worked well throughout the day.  It has not been without its difficulties though.  The bag is heavy and the rest of my gear hangs off me like and overladen Christmas Tree.  I will arrive tonight, ahead of schedule, and hopefully settle in for a couple weeks in Allauch in the hills above Marseille. 

Chefchouen

Chefchouen, Morocco

01/24/24

Apartment 1, Avenue Maghreb Arabe

I leave this great apartment tomorrow for Tetouen.  I was thinking of biking it but having seen the mountains I have decided to take the bus.  The plan is to finish the trip in Morocco by slowly making my way down along the Mediterranean coast back to Tangier Med and the ferry back to Marseille.  I am giving myself a break here because the last day will be pretty hilly. However, this way I arrive the day before departure. 

No matter how hard I tried to pack lightly my bags make any hill very difficult.  The last day will be a 23 km ride.  This doesn’t sound like much but I have learned that it is no fun to overextend.  I have a full day for this trip.  It still worries me.  My chest aches when I really have to push it.  I have to remind myself to breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth.  I havn’t had to do that for awhile…at least I havn’t had to remind myself to do it!

Chefchouen has been great. I seem to have made some friends here.  The owner of the apartment owns the cafe downstairs. There is football (soccer) every night because the African Cup is being played and Morocco is doing really well.  I walk everywhere.  It’s good exercise because the town is built into a mountain.  The old city is painted blue.  The blue color is theorized to represent the sky.  There are several stories as to why the paint became used.  I have read two accounts.  One is the migration of Jews from Spain during the inquisition and another is similar but blames WW II.   

There is a Kasbah that I visited yesterday.  It was a small castle built by the founding prince in the 15th century.  It was beautiful inside but, as my new friend Hatim says, “except the prison”.  He’s right.  The prison was pretty daunting.  The chains against the base of the wall made it evident that this was not a good pace to be…ever! He said the prisoners would be chained at the base of the wall but also around their neck.  There was electric lighting but when the place was in business there wouldn’t be.  Pitch black darkness, cold and miserable would have been the conditions.  It’s almost hard to imagine!  However, the stories of the princes, sultans and the like are filed with tales of their brutality.  For example there is the story of the designer of the beautiful door into ruler’s palace in Meknes.  The Sultan asked a simple but two edged question to the designer, “could you do any better?”  “Yes” the designer replied, assuming there was more work to be had, and immediately was decapitated!

Chefchouen is my favorite place in Morocco.  It is so much smaller than the larger cities.  The only other place this size that I’ve visited is Asilah.  Chefchouen has a little more to offer unless you are a beach person.  The stores in the old Medina are the same as in the other towns.  The weavers are still in their small shops with their looms.  As in Meknes and Tangier the men work on their sewing and fancy embroidery in tiny little shops.  I did, finally, talk to a person in the Medina here in Chefchouen.  He said he was a tour guide and he was standing outside his father’s shop.  Eventually he invited me into look at the carpets I had heard so much about.  They are incredible carpets.  Hand made by tribal women.  At least that’s how the story is told.  They are made of wool or a combination of wool and cactus or wool and silk?  The problem for me is the way the shop keeper sells.  I went to three different shops.  All had the same story of the  tribal women creating the carpets and how each woman had her own trademark built into the patterns of the carpet.  I was told how I would be supporting the Berber tribes in the hills.  The merchant then takes out carpet after carpet until I felt a sense of overwhelm.  They serve you tea.  Finally it comes down to price.  By the time negotiations are through the price has been halved or better and they have folded up the carpet they have decided you want.  I walked out.  

The deals are endless including shipping.  This is important.  I did finally decide to buy a small carpet and, after much discussion, decided to ship it myself.  DHL and FedEx are available and will be thrown in during negotiations.  The stories then will continue about how the sellers in Fes and Marrakech would be charging much more and the designs of the carpets are very particular to the the regions of Morocco and to the women who produce them.  I bought my beautiful wool carpet for $250 plus a small tip or “bacsheeshe”.  I then spent sometime figuring out the post office.  The post office is not a pace to be visited at noon!  It is also a bank and is a slow moving affair and very busy.  However, I learned that at the end of the day or when it first opens is the best time to go.  I did not bring my passport the first time I went.  They needed a copy to put on the shipping label.  So off my little rugs goes.  I wonder if I will ever see it again?  I hope so because it is quite beautiful and will be a great reminder of this trip and Morocco.

Meknes

Meknes, Morocco

1/18/2024

Recovery is today’s plan.  Yesterday I pushed just a little too hard.  I’m AOK but my body is just tired.  It was a forty mile round trip out to Volubilis, the outermost city of the Roman Empire in Africa.  Volubilis lies on a small rise above an incredibly fertile valley about twenty miles to the south of Meknes where I am staying in a beautiful Riad in the Medina.  There is no wonder why the Romans established their town here.  There is plenty of water, pitch black soil and a plethora of olive trees.  There was a temple, a forum and a triumphal arch.  There are beautiful mosaics in the few wealthy homes throughout the city.  Having seen Pompeii and Rome it becomes evident that this was a backwater town.  The palatial homes are few and and except for one or two not as luxurious.  Although, having been seriously plundered over the last 2000 years it is hard to tell just how luxurious they were.  These colonial  Romans had all the telltale accoutrements as their counterparts with pools, fountains and mosaics.  The impression left was that the wealthy tried to bring to Volubilis as much of Rome as could be copied.  The scale of the grandeur is just not there.  The Triumphal Arch is diminutive in comparison to its counterparts in and near Rome.  Volubilis was, in my opinion, a storehouse and refinery for Rome.  What I saw was small  rooms, one after another, with the same door opening.  Each door opening had a secure “hinge” of sorts.  There must has been hundreds, if not thousands of these rooms.  All with the same carved slots for some kind of secure door.  In many other ares were blocks which held some kind of wood contraption and obvious presses for either grain or certainly olive oil. Many of the blocks of stone hade grooves which must have been used as a transfer of a fluid of some sort be it water or oil.  So, in my opinion, Volubilis was an enormous storehouse for three items that fueled the Empire: olive oil, grain and wild animals sent to whet the Roman appetite for blood. I saw similar mosaics in Sicily depicting the importation of wild animals. It must have been very lucrative.  As in modern day sports there was money to be made in these sports.  I look no further than the superbowl as evidence of the money to be made in the arena.  We  do not draw as much blood but the thirst for violence has not diminished that much.  The money to be wrested from the populus is no less.

                                                                                            Triumphal Arch Volubilis

To get to Volubilis I had to fight with not just a few hills.  The way to the site was on a fairly major road that went into the mountains.  The hills were high and the road climbed in several places for miles.  Leaving Meknes was my first indicator of what I was in for.  I had noticed this hill on the bus ride in.  Gong down the slope I started talking to myself regarding what it was going to be like to return up the incline at the end of the day.  I tried not to think too much about the trip back, I knew this hill would be a serious hindrance.   I kept on going despite my trepidations.  The hills got no better throughout the day. I was right to acknowledge the final hill to Meknes.  I walked most of it.  My calculations in doing the trip up to the ruins did not fully compensate for the ruins themselves.  The walk amongst the old stones was an exercise in itself.

My stomach is not performing up to par today.  I knew this would happen in Morocco.  I have done well to avoid most obvious foods of concern.  I have had to eat and have thus suffered little inconvenience.  My solution is usually to find a “supermarché”.  They have food that is protected in plastic.  As much as I would like to be more adventurous; I hesitate. The street food in Morocco is tempting.  The open air markets are fascinating and colorful.  However, I see so much trash everywhere and other things that give me hesitation as in the bathrooms with no “papieres hygeniques”.  I m just fearful of the consequences of a bad dietary decision.  I still have two weeks to go in Morocco.  I m doing well, for now.

Morocco beat Tanzania 3 to 0 last night.

Meknes Morocco is a fascinating city.  The Medina is enormous and easy to get lost in.  I read that Meknes was not as touristic as Meknes.  I never made it to Fes due to a big rainstorm on the day i was supposed to go.  I am sure Fes would be fascinating but there was plenty to see and to wander through in old Meknes.  

Wandering through the Medinas in Morocco is never short of experiences.  From sheep heads to fine embroidery it is a never ending feast for the eyes.  Occasionally one is brought down a very dark alley only to turn a corner into brightness and a cornucopia of colors and smells.  The scent of “cat” is perpetual and everywhere.  It is mixed with the smell of a plentitude of spices and vendors cooking Kebab and Kefta.  Kefta is a mixture of ground meat.  It is heavily spiced and very tasty if you are a meat lover.  I had it a couple of times and it was very good and despite being very nervous of the outcome I had no troubles with my digestive tract.  The small stores are barely that.  Often they are closet sized and one will see people creating all manner of things in these spaces.  Most of the stalls are men sewing the complex designs of embroidery on women’s clothing.  Sometimes they have machines outside that are weaving colored threads.  Some of these shops sell only thread.  These were my favorite because of the different ways the shop keepers assemble their colorful threads.  Some of the shops are a perfect color chart with every hue of reds, greens, blues as well as silvers and gold.  There are meat shops, wood workers, metal workers, vegetable stands, mixed with electronic stores, clothing stores and old junk sellers. 

Meknes fell into disarray after its benefactor, Moulay Ismail, died.  He had turned Meknes into his personal residence.  The Bab al Mansour gate was covered up for renovation during my stay.  The door is supposed to be exquisite and I am quite positive it is.  However, there are lots of gateways with no shortage of striking beauty all over Meknes.  The palace museum was closed so I did not get a chance to see into the old palace.  I did wak around its expansive walls.  Moulay Ismail took advantage of Volubilis, twenty miles away, to embellish the palace with marble.  Moulay Ismail did not sound like a super nice guy and the rumor is that he killed on a whim.  It is also said that on hearing of his death the stones being transported up and down the hills from Volubilis were dropped and left on the spot.   I did not see any of these stones.

 

                                                           There are many cats but no rats

Leaving Meknes was bittersweet.  My riad was fantastic.  The young man who ran it was just great.  The breakfasts included with the $25 nightly fee was excellent.  He knew I loved coffee and I was never without.  It was such a filing breakfast that it lasted me the whole day.  I will miss Meknes.

Larache

 Larache, Morocco

1/15/24

I visited Larache Morocco because I read there were Roman ruins nearby.  The bike ride from Asilah to Larache was straightforward albeit an easy grade uphill for most of it.  I passed through beautiful countryside and small villages.  The routes continue to be strewn with the litter from a world habituated to the use of plastic.  It is difficult to say this but the situation is worse here than it is in Mexico.  It becomes disheartening after awhile. 

Lixus looking toward Larache

I left at sunrise and arrived earlier than expected to Lixus.  Lixus was a Roman city built on a rocky hill  overlooking a winding river.  It is a naturally defensible spot and is in complete control of the river.  The river has silted in over the millenia but there is no questioning its placement as a fine place to build.  According to the history I have read it was first exploited by the Phoenicians and then continually by Romans until the Empire began its collapse in the 4th century.  After that successive people came to build on the promontory closer to the sea where Larache now stands as a fishing port and busy city.  The fort built by the Portuguese is in decay with huge visible cracks in its walls.  This is a strong symbol of the decay of the old European colonialism and how today’s Moroccans must feel about it.  There appears to be no attempt to protect it from collapse.

Decay of  Imperialism

Route Nationale 1 runs straight down the center of the city and ends at the Spanish “square” which is a circle surrounded by Spanish architecture.  The small Medina is right behind the North side of the square.

I am staying in my first Riad in Larache.  According to the affable owner it was the oldest building in the town.  He took me and Tim, a young Swiss biker staying at the Riad, up to the rooftop terrace where he talked about growing up in the town as a young kid.  He spoke of how, after a rain storm, he could find ancient Roman and Phoenician coins which he would sell for a Dirham for candy.  What those coins would be worth today I can only imagine.

I had been really concerned about putting my bike on the bus to transport it.  So I took a trip down to the “Gare Routiere” (bus terminal) to verify.  There are several bus lines.  The CTM line is more “online” than the others.  On CTM one can reserve a seat. CTM is not expensive but is more so than the other lines available.  So for $6 (plus $2 for the bike) I took a local bus to Meknes.  Meknes is the farthest  south I will travel.  I will bike around from the beautiful Riad I am staying in.  I will depart from here to Chefchouen in a couple of days.    

Asilah

Asilah, Morocco 

Saturday, January 13, 2024 

The bike ride yesterday was a far cry from the ride from the port to Tangier. Yesterday was a bright, sunny day. The temperature was in the 60s. I even had a tailwind! The trip was from Tangier to Asilah on he coast about 30 miles away. The road was flat and took me through the “ville nouvelle” or new town. It was the more commercialized and westernized part of the city. After about 15 miles the autoroute took most of the traffic away and I was left on a two lane road leading me to the beaches of the coast. Despite the beauty of this place there is always a nagging sense of neglect that bothers me. I have seen this on my motorcycle trips to Latin America. It is the trash that people dump in the prettiest of places. On a bicycle it is impossible to ignore. This is not just a few plastic bottles strewn around. This is purposeful dumping. As if from a truck. The river I crossed looked pretty grimy too. I have thoughts of writing the king. Not that he would pay any attention to a foreigner giving him a piece of his mind. It would give me the piece of mind that maybe he would listen to me and do something about it. After all he is the king. In Asilah there are fortifications built by the Portuguese as they colonized and pillaged the coast of Africa. I do not think that Asilah was a major slave trade port but I wouldn’t be surprised if it had a hand it. So many players have had their hands in making Morocco. The Phoenicians, the Romans, the Vandals after the fall, Christians, Muslims, British, French and Spanish. Then there are the Berbers and tribes of Africa itself. And America calls itself a melting pot?

I stayed in a very interesting hotel called the Sahara for just under $20 a night. Bathroom and showers were down the hall. There was hot water and a comfortable and clean bedroom. There was a nice terrace at the top of the hotel. The staff recommended the restaurant at the end of the street. It was good and meals were about $4 to $5. Since I did not get ill there I went back during my stay. The Medina was inside the Kasbah. However, most things seem to happen right outside the walls down one long street. I found a great coffee shop that I revisited at night to watch a football match. An interesting thing I noticed about the coffee shops is that they do not seem to mind people bringing food in from elsewhere and eating it with ones coffee. I followed others doing this and was not chastised. 

There was a big surf along the beaches. I believe Morocco is known or is becoming known as a surfing destination. 

Tomorrow I head toward LaRache.