Thursday 9th May 2013
The day started with a 6:00am wakeup call, and after breakfast we were on the bus at 8:00am. The programme had been brought forward by an hour to try and avoid the chaos from the planned strikes and traffic expected in the city today. We headed south to Valencia following the coast and the mountains on our right. It was about a four hour journey with a couple of breaks on the way. There were also so protest marches in Valencia and so our tour of the city had to be rescheduled. We walked around the medieval quarter and saw numerous churches, all  following of which were closed. We rejoined the bus at the last remaining city gate of the twelve which was built in 1392. We were then driven down to the port area where a lot of money had been spent by the Alinghi team to win and defend the America's Cup. We then drove little further and saw the new museum and opera house. One can see where the Spanish have spent their the money they have borrowed. But I don't think they realise yet that they have to pay it back. If all the development work attracts tourists then it may eventually pay for itself, but it will take a long, long time and I don't think Germany and the EU are prepared to wait that long. I tried out my camera GPS during the day. Each photo was geo tagged and when the day's photos loaded into Lightroom showed up on a Google map. Quite impressive, although the GPS is a tad cumbersome when used with a Canon EOS 7D.
We also found out this evening that our local guide for the day, Ophelia, had seemed very stressed, because she had just been advised by her Bank that it had been bailed out by the Spanish Government for 10 Billion Euros and that all her retirement funds and savings had been converted into shares in the Bank, which of course, were worthless. I would have assumed that an individual's freehold asset, such as cash, would not have been able to be claimed as an asset of the Bank. But this seems to be what is happening in countries like Spain and Cyprus. Although prices for food etc are not cheap here ,by our standards, wages have been reduced. A Government teacher would currently be receiving about 1,200 euros per month

Friday 10th May 2013
We boarded the bus at 8:30am for the 700km journey from Valencia to Granada. The journey was uneventful and we passed through many different kinds of terrain as we worked our way across southern Spain to the Sierra Navarra. Much of the country was barren and one would say was worthless, but the next valley was filled with market gardens. It seemed odd to us that some of these gardens were in the wide flat empty river beds. We had been told that it had been a wet spring and yet these rivers were not flowing and what looked like permanent market gardens had been planted in the river beds. In one very arid place we were told that the top soil had been brought in from some other place and placed on top of the natural surface and rocks, and then green houses put over the top of the new soil. The great attraction here is the huge amount of sunlight and a number of crops can be grown each year. But everyone in the tour group agreed that their agricultural system didn't look sustainable. In fact the everything about Spain gives one the impression that they have borrowed huge amounts of money, spent it on massive infra structure projects and housing and now can't pay for it. There were apartment buildings everywhere and evidence of a huge amount of construction over the last 10 years.

Under Spanish law our bus driver had to have a break every 2 hours or so and so we got a few breaks as well. On one of our stops we stopped at the resort town of La Vila Soiosa, with it's beautiful beach. Another quick stop was at Guadix, where there has been human habitation for many thousands of years and where people dug caves into the clay cliff faces.
We arrived in Granada at about 5:15pm, checked into the Hotel Condor. Granada's population has doubled over the last ten years when the local government enticed a large nano technology company to set up research and manufacturing here. This is another hotel with free WiFi and so gets one tick of approval. However the air-conditioner doesn't seem to work quite as I had hoped.
We wandered into town with the group and had dinner at an outside restaurant and got back to the hotel at about 10:30pm

Saturday 11th May 2013
A little bit of History. In around 711AD, the effect of Roman and Greek Empires was well and truly on the decline in Spain. While in around Damascus and Baghdad the people were becoming unified under Islam. These people were following a dream and went in search of "Paradise" which turned out to be Andalucia in southern Spain. This society that moved into Spain was made up of the Arabs (aristocracy and rulers) and the Moors (mercenaries) and contributed greatly to the philosophy of the Spanish culture. Granada became the capital of Andalucia, and this is where the Arabs built the Alhambra (Red Castle in Arabic) Palace and Gardens. The Arabs ruled the area from 1238 through to 1492 when the Alhambra Palace was the last Arab stronghold and this fell to the husband and wife team of Fernando of Aragon and Isobel of Castile. These monarchs united Granada to the Castilian crown, united all the Spanish states under one monarchy, linked Spain with Portugal, England and Austria by means of their progeny's marriages.
So today we visited the Alhambra Palace and the magnificent gardens and then visited the Royal Chapel of Granada where Fernando and Isobel are buried. As we came out of the Chapel at about 1:00pm we came across a religious parade. Everyone was dressed up in their traditional finery, men and women were on horseback or just walking and then a big silver religious icon on a cart drawn by a bull was the highlight of the parade. This was followed by tractor drawn caravans, all ornately decorated.

In the afternoon we walked around the streets of Granada. We visited a small manufacturing shop that sold ornate wooden boxes. We began buying boxes for Cloudia. In the evening we were taken by bus up the narrow winding streets of the city to a "night club" that promised wild gipsy flamenco dancing. We were led into what could be described as a narrow cave with seats down either side. After a little research, I believe the cave was María La Canastera’s Zambra (Zambra Maria La Canastera) in the Sacromonte district.
The flamenco dancers entered and performed, but the whole show seemed to lack the enthusiasm that we were expecting.

We were then taken by our guide to a place where we could get good photos of the Alhambra Palace, although I had a tripod the breeze was strong enough to move the camera and the photos were not particularly good.

Sunday 12th May 2013
 Just before 8:00am we checked out of the Hotel in Granada and headed towards Ronda. This little town is perched on some cliff tops and has a wonderful stone bridge that enables the inhabitants to cross over the ravine that divides the town. As we arrived the band was warming up for a procession.  This procession was for "Our Lady of the Peace."
Some very tired looking runners/walkers were also crossing the finish line to thunderous applause for finishing the 101kms/24hour endurance race called The Ronda Solidaria.
The oldest bullring in Spain is also located in Ronda, built in 1783. Lucy, our guide, explained the intricacies of bull fighting which I'm not going to repeat here because they are too depressing and cruel.

We then headed to the port of Tarifa to catch the ferry that took us to Tangier in Morocco. The issuing of visas was done on board the ferry by one Moroccan Policeman. The crossing took about 1¼ hours and as we were disembarking he was still processing and issuing visas. We were given a familiarisation bus trip around the city of Tangier. The city it quite modern and is very hilly. There are eucalypts everywhere. The parks are very basic and there were people sitting under the trees surrounded by paper and litter.
We had dinner in the hotel and then went to bed. Our room is large, but as in Granada, the airconditioner doesn't work and we slept with our 5th floor door open despite all the noise from the streets below. We both have colds now and are feeling a little miserable.

Monday 13th May 2013
We left the hotel at 8:00am and headed towards Meknes. We drove through mile after mile of fields of strawberries, corn and nearly every other vegetable and fruit imaginable. The whole countryside was a mosaic of different coloured fields as far as the eye could see.

We arrived in Meknes at lunchtime and were ushered into one of those restaurants that cater for 350 people at one sitting. The meal was quite apertising with the choice of beef, lamb or chicken turine. After lunch we were taken for a quick bus tour of the city. The markets and the houses were most picturesque. We ended up at a Mosque and Mausoleum, took some more photos and moved on.

The next stop was Volubilis with its Roman ruins. We wandered down the various paths and the only restrictions of where we couldn't go were on some of the mosaic floors. These were just roped off, and no one tried to walk on them, although it was tempting. Volubilis was a Roman town and had Temples for Jupiter and Venus.

Next we headed to Fez where we are going to spend the next two nights. The Ramada Hotel was good, the air conditioning worked, but it was a bit of hit and miss to find a power point that worked. Fes was founded in 808AD and is located in a valley between the Rif Mountains and the Atlas Mountains.
Our colds are making us feel miserable, but we have lots of medication to control the coughs and the runny noses.

Tuesday 14th May 2013
Today was the day to explore Fes. We boarded our bus and were taken to an elevated position on one of the nearby hills so that we had a panoramic view of the oldest part of Fez. After taking a few photos we were taken to a ceramics factory. Here they make tiles and pottery using the unique grey clay in the area. The tiles are then chipped to the correct shape using sharp hammers. These tiles are the laid face down and the backing concrete is poured over them. When set the whole piece is lifted.
From the ceramics factory we headed off to the Moroccan Carpet emporium. Here they rolled out carpet after carpet for us to look at. Only if you showed genuine interest in buying did they offer an opening price, so many of the carpets we could only guess at the price, but they would have been in the many thousands of euros. One of the carpets took one woman over two years to complete.
In the same building we were offered lunch. Morocco is not the cheapest place on earth to buy food. A glass of freshly squeezed orange juice cost us 20 Dirham (A$3.00) and the main course, which consisted of a chicken wing in a lemon marinade cost 100 Dirham (A$12.00).

		Similar to the Nejjarine Fountain, Fez
Medersa Attarine, Fez

After lunch we walked through a maze of narrow streets. Every few metres we were confronted by a mule or donkey laden with goods, beggars, men flogging off cheap silverware, hats etc. We came to a small square in amongst the maze of buildings where they were making copper goods by beating large sheets of copper into shape with wooden hammers.

		The King's Palace gates, Fez

We continued down the maze of alley ways until we came to the tannery and leather works. Here all kinds of rubbish were thrown into the fast flowing river never to be seen again. The leather dying vats were quite colourful and the array of leather coats, bags and wallets etc was quite impressive. Briar bought a coat for around 180 euros.
We made it back to the bus and took a few photos to the gates of the Kings Palace. We made it back to the hotel by about 5:30pm quite tired from the day's experience.
My cold has taken a grip and I now have a persistent cough and I feel flat. It is always a blessing to get back to the bus and the airconditioner, even though the outside temperature was in the low 20s.