While earthquakes weren’t all that an uncommon in Lisbon, the city suffering a handful of significant occurrences each century, the earthquake of November 1, 1755 proved especially devastating as it was one of the largest cities in Europe at the time and left an indelible mark upon the collective community. Voltaire would even write about it both in a poem he produced shortly after the quake, and then again in his 1759 novel ‘Candide.’ Even a hundred years later it would still find its way in poetic works like Oliver …

Both times I’ve been to Ifrane, I was pretty sure I was going to die.
The first time, I’d been up for over 24 hours and Gary and I were as yet unused to the joys of travel in Morocco by Grand Taxi, so could be forgiven for equating the lack of seat belts or traffic rules with possible death. The second time, we’d gotten used to the whimsical aggressiveness of Moroccan drivers (in comparison to our boring ordered traffic), but it was night and dark and winter, making the …

After our awesome Mediterranean cruise aboard the Vision of the Seas we opted for a short hop over to Morocco, as its proximity meant relatively cheap plane tickets for the quick flight, and additional savings flying out of Morocco as Lisbon at the time was asking almost double for the same flight home. It also meant the opportunity to visit with an old friend living up in the Atlas Mountains in the sleepy resort/university town of Ifrane.

During our 2009 visit Nicole talked about how the trip was only “mildly …

While the standard image of a busload of people piling out at some location, followed by a guide who gathers them up like ducklings and marches them off after a quick head count, umbrella in hand to help lead the way, is likely to be the type of tour you end up on if you ever decide to go with some sort of official tour group, they don’t always need to come in this variety. And even if it does, these tours also have a number of pros to them, …

The Riad les Idrissides staff are kind and wonderful. Hadija, the manager, made us feel at home immediately and agreed to all requests with a genuine ‘avec plasir.’ Gary was very ill during our one-day trip through Fes, and was unable to really go out during the day – she even allowed us to keep the room before we left in the late afternoon with no extra charge, and refused our offers to pay for the extra time.
Tip: While their booking information indicates they accept all major credit cards, they …

We had the opportunity to write a guest post for Amanda – thanks for letting us blog for you – over at Maroc Mama about our trip to Ifrane, Morocco. Check it out at her site.

While the quick approach of November means we’ll soon be off for our cruise and a short stay in Morocco, we sadly will not be able to make it down to the south this time around – a shame as we so enjoy Marrakech and Nic still has designs on getting further south

The very same area that the Saadians came to power from.
Originally their rule from 1509 through to 1554 CE only extended over southern Morocco – around the region where the city of Zagora is now.
This all …

Drawing upon Morocco’s top artisans, Grand Vizier Si Mossa had them work on the palace for fourteen years.

Boasting floor to ceiling decorations, el Bahia palace was originally constructed in the 1860s, but was further embellished upon by the slave-turned-vizier, Abu ‘Bou’ Ahmed, between 1894 and 1900.

While only a portion of the 8 hectare palace is open to the public, the sections you can walk are pretty extensive, and gives you a great sense of the lifestyle enjoyed by the two viziers and their many wives and concubines.

Upon his death, …

During our stay in Marrakech we tried to wander the city as far as we could on foot from the Jemaa el-Fnaa. And while a bit of a hike from our riad – though I suspect that might have had more to do with us getting lost a couple of times navigating the warrens that make up large parts of the market district then it being that far away – we were able to make our way over to the el Bahia Palace.

At the time it cost us about a …

Given how much I’ve written about their ruins, I thought I’d pay a little attention to the Dynasty responsible for settling one of our favourite parts of Morocco.

Founded in the 12th century, the Almohad Dynasty established their Berber state in the Atlas Mountains before expanding their power over all northern Africa and sweeping over to Portugal and southern Spain, where they eventually transferred their capital to Seville in 1170 CE.
Because of which you’ll find evidence of their presence in the Giralda, commissioned in 1184 CE in imitation of the …