Chicken Souk for the Soul

London is not a great place to spend Christmas if you have no family in the area. The city shuts down in a way that is hard to comprehend. All shops close. All movie theaters close. No trains run. No buses run. Going out on the street is downright eerie.

When we decided not to go to America for Christmas this year for logistical reasons, the next immediate question was "If not America, then where?" We applied a system that a cow orker of Mary's uses (visit Muslim countries during Christian holidays) and came up with Marrakesh.

When the French colonized the city, they actually made a conscious decision to leave the old town alone and to build outside its walls; because of this, it's divided into an old town (Medina) and new town. We spent almost all of our time in the Medina. Our hotel was towards the northernmost part of the Medina, with the main square Jemaa el Fna about two-thirds of the way south in the Medina. Between us lay the souks. This scene is from a square almost at the southern tip of the Medina, and gives a sense of the very slightly organized chaos that was traffic. Streets were a mix of pedestrians, mopeds, men and donkeys pushing and pulling carts, and -- where allowed -- cars and horse-drawn carriages.

Our hotel, thankfully, was a respite from the anarchy. We stayed in a Riad, which is basically a bed and breakfast in a converted townhouse. Traditional homes in Marrakesh (and I believe all of Morocco) are built with a series of rooms all opening on to an open-air central courtyard. Traditionally the courtyard and some of the rooms off it would serve as the living/family/dining room. Our Riad had three guest rooms, though each was large enough to accommodate a family of four (and the other two were doing so.) We had breakfast in the courtyard every day and had dinner there once as well. At night it dipped down into the 50s, so they had a few heat lamps to make things more cozy. Because all Riads had been family homes, they tend to be down tiny winding alleys. This was true of ours as well, and I will admit that when we first arrived form the airport it was a bit disconcerting. Our cab stopped randomly on the street, at a point at which cars can not progress past. We were met by someone else, who lead us down ever narrowing and darkening alleys, at one point picking up a random group we passed who were lost and looking for a specific address. Thankfully, the place itself was lovely and the path to it not hard to follow once you had done it a time or two.

Between the Riad and the main square stretched the souks. These are market stalls selling pretty much everything you can imagine. Many of them are aimed at the tourists, but we also saw some for general sundries and a whole section for selling live poultry. They are somewhat organized by what they sell, and we knew we were getting close to home when we started passing by the butchers. There is a huge culture of haggling in Morocco, and walking through the souks could feel like reading through your spam folder: Everyone is trying his best to grab your attention and get you to buy their thing, and they are not always 100% honest about it. Early on we got a bit lost due to following some dubious directions, but once we knew our way and happily ignored the calls of "wrong way! wrong way! big square this way." we had very few issues. In the end we skipped the hassle of haggling and bought our souvenirs in one of the state-run fixed-price shops. Between being amateurs at haggling and not knowing Arabic or French, we just didn't want to deal with the hassle. Based on what we read about the mark up at the state-run stores, we probably ended up paying less than if we had tried haggling anyway.

The main square in the Medina is Jamaa el Fna. This panarama was taken in the morning when things are pretty quiet, but the square does ramp up through the day and there is always something going on. It's probably the largest plaza that we've seen in our travels, sprawling over several normal-sized city blocks. It's surrounded by cafes and hotels and covered in various stands and hucksters. There is a group of orange juice carts that we never saw closed, and in the evening vendors wheel in food carts that set up tents and seating ares to serve food until late at night.

As the afternoon wears into evening, the square starts filling up. People pack the benches of the food stands. The snake charmers clear out and storytellers and singers take their places. Everywhere is a spectacle of some form. It's a pretty amazing experience to walk through the crowds of people, checking out what each clump is watching or listening to and taking in the madness yourself. We had dinner in the Jamaa el Fna twice, and both times the food was simple but very good. We got skewers of grilled meat along with the ubiquitous local flatbread and various salads of fresh and grilled vegetables. We also hit a pastry cart for a mix of cookies for dessert and found a few delightful honey-based ones that I want to track down online. In the background, you can see the minaret of...

...the Koutoubia Mosque. Traditionally these mosque towers were used to call the faithful to prayer throughout the day. The Muezzin now use loudspeakers to avoid the climb, but thankfully the towers remain. This tower is actually the twin of the one we climbed in Seville, though because Mosques are only open to Muslims we were not able to climb it to get shots from above. It's quite odd for me to not sort through dozens of skyline shots looking for the perfect one, but alas. Each neighborhood in town has its own mosque, and hearing the calls to prayer coming from across the city is quite beautiful. I find the call quite mournful, and to hear it rising and falling from the various mosques, slightly out of sync, made it sound like sad songbirds calling to each other and responding. Beautiful and haunting.

While we could not enter the mosques, we could enter the Ben Youssef Madrasa. This was a site where students would come to study the Koran, and it remains open today as a historical site. The student's rooms are quite dark and plain, but the central courtyard and prayer hall are elaborately carved, tiled, and plastered. This type of over the top geometry is central to Islamic art, and I love it. Despite visiting many sites decorated in this style, it just never gets old to me. The patterns are intricate and interesting on their own, and mesmerizing when taken in en masse like this. Every time we visit a site with any Islamic or Moorish art, my doodles get much more interesting.

Lest all this majesty seem too permanent, we visited El Badi Palace. This was a huge palace built by rulers in 16th century which is now home to many feral cats and storks. About a hundred years after its completion, a new ruling family came in and stripped it of all its finery to create another palace elsewhere. The giant shell still stands, and while the decorative tile and carvings are long gone, the sheer scale of the thing is amazing. To me it was reminiscent of some of the castles we had seen in Scotland, which were tiny cities unto themselves.

Back in the world of elaborate carving and tilework, we visited the Museum of Marrakesh. This museum focuses on the arts and crafts of Morocco, and describes the regional differences in those crafts. In French. Even without knowing the language though, we could appreciate this former palace for its aesthetic beauty. Also, it was a great chance to make Mary roll her eyes at me taking a panarama, so...win/win.

While it's on the edge of the Sahara desert, Marrakesh itself is an oasis. Literally! It's built atop natural springs which feed not only its water supply, but also its many gardens. Even in December, we found things in full leaf and in many cases covered in fruit or flowers. We visited a few of the gardens, and they are quite ordered and calm. This shot is from the "Cyber Park", which was originally built in the 18th century. Recently, the local telecom company installed wireless in the entire area, making it very popular with youths. Despite the kiosks for web browsing, it was still a lovely and lush getaway from all the hubbub. We also strolled the lanes of the gardens behind the Koutoubia mosque and even peeked into some around the royal palace where the current king lives. All were lovely.

Overall, we had a fantastic trip. The food was great, the people were lovely (if a bit pushy on the selling), and the sights amazing. As expected, it was by far the most foreign feeling place that we've visited. Whether getting passed by a donkey cart, walking down a street with shop fronts full of men working leather into goods, or looking at the outside of a building and realizing that it used to be the inside of a building (a surprisingly common sight) we were constantly surprised and taken out of our element. It's probably not a good destination less experienced travelers, but man did we have a blast.

Marketing Christmas

Germany takes Christmas seriously; Towns not only have multiple Christmas trees, but also have multiple Christmas markets. We wanted to experience this particular holiday madness, so we headed to Cologne for a long weekend.

As we've noticed in previous visits to Germany, there is a wide mix of new and old due to bombing during World War Two. Most of Cologne is more modern architecture like the museum in the foreground of this shot, with a few older buildings (like the Cathedral) sprinkled in. While we do like the cutesy older parts of town, I also quite like the blending of newer, older, and newer-but-made-to-look-older that we encountered.

We climbed the Cathedral tower (as we do) and had a great view down over the modern city. We also got an areal view of this market, which snuggles up next to the Cathedral and is one of the larger ones in town. From above it appears to have a semblance of order, but when you're in it it's a total maze.

And here is that market at night. The tree is giant and has a wide skirt of lights that is lit at night and covers the center of the market. It's a bit hard to make out the crowd in this picture, but it's jam-packed with people. The sun sets pretty early in the winter so by 5:00 pm it was feeling quite late. That didn't stop huge crowds from showing up for hot spiced wine and fried foods. Other than breakfast, all of our meals came from food stands in the markets, and it was fantastic.

The next major market was in the old town. It stretched along the length of this part of the city and was a block wide and a dozen blocks long. The markets are full of stalls that sell various Christmas and non-Christmas related trinkets. We picked up a bunch of ornaments and small decorations, and had a nice time of it.

Each market also had a nativity scene, which we naturally were comparing and contrasting. The old city market had our favorite: The entire scene carved out of logs and tree trunks.

The old city market also had a gnome theme going. These fellas showed up on signs for booths, signs pointing to areas with specific types of vendors, even signs pointing to the toilets. It turned into a bit of a Where's Waldo thing, trying to spy all the ways the little fellas were used.

The third large market we went to was the angel market. It had a starry night theme, and they strung the trees with star-shaped lanterns. The decorations were pretty cool, and hanging out there in the evening and night was neat. This picture gives a sense of the crowds that we encountered. It was high season for the markets, so things were packed well into the night. Thankfully earlier in the day things were a bit quieter so we were not constantly assaulted.

We didn't just wander the markets on the trip, we also visited a few museums. Mary indulged me and we paid a visit to the modern art museum. They were having a display on pop art, which included these boxes on the wall. Mary and I got into quite the discussion about whether this qualifies as art at all, which to me is a marker of art. Mary remains unconvinced. Regardless of the art-i-ness of the boxes, we both quite enjoyed the museum.

Overall we had a great time in Cologne and enjoyed both the markets and city. We will definitely do another market trip next year around the same time, though we may branch out on the town. We hear Nurnberg is nice...