The first few hours after leaving Barcelona we were rocking and rolling a bit on the high seas. Not horrible but a bit bouncy.
We're heading south so in addition to the seas calming the temperature has been going up gradually.
We passed the Rock of Gibraltar around 6:00 last night. Shortly thereafter we were in the Atlantic Ocean. Today it's sunny and around 65 here in the North African country of Morocco.
We broke with tradition and actually did a ship sponsored tour.
It has actually allowed us to get out of the port and industrial city of Casablanca and see some of the surprisingly lush green agricultural region as we made our way to the city of Rabat.
Although it is located on the coast as well Rabat is not a port town. It is the home of most of the government offices for the country as well as the Royal palace.
Like England there continues to be a royal family but it is more of a tradition than actual authority.
In Rabat we visited the Royal Palace as well as a kasbah and a medina. For those who are interested a kasbah is a walled or fortress city with only one gate whereas a medina is a walled city with many gates.
The kasbah was quite interesting because it contained ruins from the 14th century and if you hadn't have known where you were you would have thought you were in Rome.
The medina was much larger. In some areas there were the narrow alleyways like those in many of the older European cities and there was another small area that was white buildings with blue roofs like the Greek islands.
After a very nice lunch we're now heading back to Casablanca. Which like any city with over 5 million residents is a little noisy and congested.
Things we learned and observed:
Morocco is a Muslim country, but as our tour guide pointed out is very secular. "There's a road to the mosque and a road to the bar....you choose" was his way of describing it.
Children are taught both Arabic and French.
The minarets on the mosques are square instead of the more traditional round shape because North Africa was never under Turkish rule.
A local would never refer to Casablanca by it's full name. It would simply be Casa.
Our guide proclaimed Morocco is the phosphate capital of the world. Now I didn't want to correct him and start an international incident but "Phosphate Capital of the World" is Mulberry's claim to fame and we're not giving up that title to anyone.
