We took the morning train to Marrakesh out of Fes through the high-rises of Nouvelle Fes, and then rolled by the disadvantaged burbs: unfinished ravaged apartments, weatherbeaten dwellings with paint peeled away in patches, shantytowns behind low concrete walls looking like they have been created out of landfills. After that, the flat brown landscape parceled into…
Author: Grubb
The dream of water
Succumb to the maze of the Medina, get a whiff of an unusual spice, rub up against a certain lamp, and it’s possible a spell has been cast and your belief in dreams has been enhanced. Take my Berber doppelgänger, Ali Baba bin Berzerki Berber. Bin Berzerki has often dreamt of owning a Picasso. So today he exits…
Trippy Tiles
Yesterday our driver, Zamir, took us to Volubilis, the site of Roman ruins dating back to the third century BC. Built on a hill looking out onto what was once probably a much more fertile valley, the settlement appears to have been as large as Pompeii. It has the stamp of empire with the columns and the…
Tooling Through The Labyrinth (Fes)
Sunday, while we were wandering through the shoulder-wide walkways with Hakim, it became clear that calling Fes a walled Medina referred to more than the exterior fourteen-gated rampart surrounding the town. Inside the Medina, whether we turned left or right, there was always a seamless wall two-to-three stories high on either side of us. This wall…
The Quest
As I shuffle into my dotage, I’ve become an aficionado of slippers. I’m forever in search of the perfect pair, and I’ve always wondered how a curled pointy-toe pair of yellow Ali Baba specials would feel on my feet. Where better to rub the magic lamp and see if my wish might be granted? Mohammed kept having…
La, la, la!
Yesterday, when we got off a full-to-overflowing train from Casablanca (it’s the beginning of a week-long holiday for Moroccan families), we followed the crowd over the tracks into the taxi parking zone where two Moroccans were heatedly screaming at each other. No blows were exchanged, but at one point they hung fire when one of them,…
Very dry city
I haven’t had a drink in years, and yet it was unnerving, in a city of millions where the busy streets are filled with activity, to walk block after block without seeing a single bar or liquor store. Where were the beckoning neon signs, the glistening bottles behind glass, the beer joints catering to the Bukowskis…
Casablanca
Flying in: lots of leg room; flight 2/3 full; caught up with some movies, the best being Trier’s “The Worst Person In The World.” Landing at the extensive airport outside of Casablanca in a murky early morning mist to join a long snaking line of entrees at passport check-in. Colorful group! The Lagos contingent in their long…
Wake up and smell the cheese
Sheep cheese. Or what was left of the creamy delight after last night’s snack. I told Ella that if she could smell it, she didn’t have to worry about stressing over the rapid antigen test we were to take later in the morning. My reasoning wasn’t comforting. As she pointed out, whether I was right…
Fountains beneath our feet
A late morning rain was predicted to all but disappear by early afternoon, so to avoid getting wet we decided to drop into the Pharmacy Museum during that time. The museum is at the top of a hill located above a tiny veranda-like plaza that looks out over the steep neighborhood streets leading to the…
My man in Macao
May 1, International Workers Day the world over, is Labor Day in Portugal and observed as a holiday. This reflects how the Socialist Party has dominated the political scene since 1974 when the Carnation Revolution ended Salazar’s dictatorship. So, like Easter Monday, a lot of venues were closed and, with the increasing tourist traffic loving…
When kings rode coach
Before we traveled, I made sure to bring an umbrella; I would have been better served if I had brought sunscreen. Today it got up to 27 degrees Celsius. Flush-faced Northern Europeans, sun hats, shorts. We lit out for the wide river promenade in Bélem. Cappuccinos at a cafe near a Portuguese-style RV park… …then…
Armless volleyball
With the weather predicted to be in the mid-seventies, we figured it would be good day to head west along the coast and scope out the resort town of Cascais. It’s an easy train ride, and we went early enough to avoid fighting for seats. (By early, I mean any time before noon. After twelve,…
Behind that nondescript wall
Today was supposed to be without purpose, laid back and relaxing. No hike to any hilltop fortress, no wandering cold empty palatial hallways, no room-by-room exploration of museum antiquities, nope, just roving the crooked streets of Lisbon taking advantage of sunny seventy-degree weather. Then Ella mentioned something about porcelain sculptures near the Museo de Lisbon…
Royal habitats
Sintra, famous for its picturesque hilltop palace, was a short train ride north. Since it’s a major tourist destination, and since the memories of the roped-off interiors of the Pizzi Palace merge with countless roped-off dining rooms and drawing rooms and bedrooms of the Schoenbrunn Palace, etc., we chose not to go inside and tour…