The Alhambra

“In the centre of the kingdom lay its capital, the beautiful city of Granada, sheltered, as it were, in the lap of the Sierra Nevada, or Snowy Mountains.

 

Its houses, seventy thousand in number, covered two lofty hills with their declivities and a deep valley between them, through which flowed the Darro. The streets were narrow, as is usual in Moorish and Arab cities, but there were occasionally small squares and open places.

 

The houses had gardens and interior courts, set out with orange, citron, and pomegranate trees and refreshed by fountains, so that as the edifices ranged above each other up the sides of the hills, they presented a delightful appearance of mingled grove and city.

 

 

 

 

One of the hills was surmounted by the Alcazaba, a strong fortress commanding all that part of the city;

 

the other by the Alhambra, a royal palace and warrior castle, capable of containing within its alcazar and towers a garrison of forty thousand men, but possessing also its harem,

 

 

the voluptuous abode of the Moorish monarchs, laid out with courts and gardens, fountains and baths, and stately halls decorated in the most costly style of Oriental luxury.

 

According to Moorish tradition, the king who built this mighty and magnificent pile was skilled in the occult sciences, and furnished himself with the necessary funds by means of alchemy.*

 

“Such was its lavish splendor that even at the present day the stranger, wandering through its silent courts and deserted halls, gazes with astonishment at gilded ceilings and fretted domes,

 

 

 

the brilliancy and beauty of which have survived the vicissitudes of war and the silent dilapidation of ages.”

 

Irving, Washington. “Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada.” (1829)

 

 

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Melilla

Tapas and white wine. A welcome change from tajine but there is something unsettling about Melilla, one of Spain's two remaining "enclaves", surrounded by Moroccan territory.

The Spanish position is that both Ceuta and Melilla are integral parts of the Spanish state, and have been since the 15th century, centuries before Morocco's independence from France in 1956. Morocco denies these claims and maintains that the Spanish presence on or near its coast is a remnant of the colonial past which should be ended.

The adjacent city of Nador and Melilla are worlds apart. The chaos, grime and poverty on the Moroccan side of the border gives way to pristine, elegant streets full of tapas bars and the Modernist/Art Deco architecture of Enrique Nieto, a student of Antonio Gaudi. Nieto continued designing in the modernist style, even after Modernism went out of fashion elsewhere. Accordingly, Melilla has the second most important concentration of Modernist works in Spain after Barcelona.

 

 

On the day we explored the old, fortress town we witnessed the apprehension of "illegal migrants" attempting to penetrate the heavily guarded borders of the enclave. There were Guardia Civil everywhere, helicopters buzzing overhead, police on motocross bikes zooming up and down the narrow, cobbled lanes of the old town in search of intruders.

There is considerable pressure by African refugees to enter Melilla which of course is part of the European Union. The border is secured by the Melilla border fence, a six-metre-tall double fence with watch towers, trip wires, infra red and CCTV and massive numbers of border patrol police. Refugees frequently manage to cross it illegally, avoiding the attempts by Spanish police to take them back to their home countries

...Mellila's elegant Central Park

...at the foot of Melilla's heavily restored, 15th century fortress.

 

 

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Lost in the Medina at Fez

Lost in the Medina at Fez...

Where the locals do their everyday shopping...

We passed the Sidi Ahmed Tijani Mosque...

and the 9th century Kairaouine Library with an old man selling second hand shoes and what appeared to be comic books based on the Koran (so much for the prohibition against the depiction of the human form).

We recharged our tired, old legs in a little, hole-in-the-wall cafe...

Moroccan "nus-nus" (strong, cafe latte) accompanied by sweets filled with coconut, date, cashews and coated in chocolate. Can anyone beat the Morrocans at cake making? I suspect not.

At the meat market there is all manner of flesh, fish and foul on sale - including tortoises and snails.

Obviously hard to move this line of padlock- they seem to have been sitting there for centuries?

Around Place Seffarine the metalworkers hammer away...

...and stop to chat with neighbours and passersby.

 Horses, donkeys and miles are still a handy form of transport for lugging merchandise along the narrow lane ways.

Sensory overload. 

We make our way out onto the Place Er R'Cif...

...and back to the hotel in a Petit Taxi (exhausted).

What a maze! 

What a city!

 

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Fez

"...the populace closes in again, so quickly and densely that it seems impossible it could ever have been parted, and negro water-carriers, muffled women, beggars streaming with sores, sinewy and greasy "saints," Soudanese sorcerers hung with amulets made of sardine-boxes and hares'-feet, long-lashed boys of the Chleuh in clean embroidered caftans, Jews in black robes and skull-caps, university students carrying their prayer-carpets, bangled and spangled black women, scrofulous children with gazelle eyes and mangy skulls, and blind men tapping along with linked arms and howling out verses of the Koran, surge together in a mass drawn by irresistible suction to the point where the bazaars converge..."

Excerpt from: Wharton, Edith. “In Morocco” (1920)

You learn to escape to the edges of the city's madness - onto the rooftops and outside the city walls to get a more balanced view of this huge, blaring, brilliant place. Fez is every bit as frantic as Marrakesh, although I suspect this has always been the case- tourism is just one of its business concerns. Fez caters overwhelmingly to its own people.

There are peaceful spots - the dazzling archways of the Batha Palace...

with its Andalusian garden full of Seville orange trees...

...the Jnane S'bile park with its lake and towering palms...

...the ancient waterwheel on the rippling Oued Fez...

...the terrace of the mysterious clock tower which looks out over the pretty, green minerat of the Bou Inania mosque.

Its medersa (Koranic school) ...

 

...contains beautifully crafted grills, wooden corbels, intricately worked doors and impressive zelij tile work.

Edith Wharton's descriptions of the crowds are typical of her time - resorting to exoticism and stereotype to describe Morocco's various social groups. Her descriptions make me smirk, however, as they do manage to capture the actual madness and colour of the crowds. There are a fascinating array of people, wired and wonderful things to see.

 

And exquisite workmanship to be observed on almost every street corner...

And as always, more irresistible, feline photographic subjects. A mother and baby make use of a makeshift bed of old zippers, and off cuts outside a tailor's shop...

 

 

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