I always like to say that summer is not outside and defined by the temperature. It is in your head and you can have summer in your head the whole year. This thought came to my mind a few years ago when everyone was asking me questions like: “Are you not cold in that dress?” Why don’t you wear trousers this winter?” and my universal answer was “Summer is in my head so I am never cold”. Last year in Germany I discovered the song “Jetzt is Sommer” from Wise Guys which is EXACTLY about this and was really happy about that (sorry for non-german speakers – but anyway..uncle Google will help you with the translation if you want). But it is kind of off-topic now. 

The point of this whole introduction is, that even though I don’t let the weather influence my mood I feel that I can overcome the winter much better when I travel for some time to a sunny place. Two years ago it was wonderful Barcelona and Galicia in Spain, a year ago I did the most wonderful and magical trip in my life to Iran. I love to travel in the offseason from more reasons: 

1. You skip the darkness and cold – As I wrote earlier I think that the best way how to overcome better the winter is just to go somewhere where people just do NOT have to suffer that much from the darkness as we have to in the Czech Republic. 
2. Prices – Logically, prices are not that high when you come in the less common time. Hotels are cheaper, food is cheaper, services etc. (locals are happy that you are there and want to spend some money there so they are willing to make you a better price)
3. Temperature – I personally HATE when I am sweating the whole day and I am supposed to do sightseeing but the actual thing that i am able to do in the hot temperature is just to lay in the shadow and hibernate. For discovering cities the temperature between 5 and 23 degrees Celsius is perfect for me. That’s why in summer I prefer to hike in the mountains. or just do some activity where I don’t need to be in the overcrowded places with 10000000+ other tourists. 
4. Friendlier locals (doesn’t apply for everyone of course) – I believe that people can be very tired of tourists during the peak season and actually annoyed that instead of their friends they meet on the streets only strangers. 

So all these are the reasons why we decided to go to Morocco this December. We didn’t rush much but anyway we managed to do just enough things to be satisfied back home. Before the trip summary, I would love to mention a few points that are characteristic for the country from my perspective:

1. The country is NOT CHEAP – especially on the touristic spots, restaurants and shops are more expensive than those in the Czech Republic. Supermarkets are super expensive. On the other hand, if you go bit further from the touristic spots you can find really cheap food (lunch for 2 €) – but so not expect anything super special.
2. HASHISH is NOT legal in the country – this thing was offered to us literally EVERYWHERE. In the beginning, I found it funny but later on it started to be really annoying to be in the middle of attention all the time and the only thing that people were shouting at us was “Do you want hash? Hash? Good quality..hash?”. It seems that Morocco is like Netherlands but the truth is, that it is illegal to smoke hash as in other countries with the difference, that nobody cares about it in Morocco. Tripsavvy offers a pretty good article about this topic.
3. TRAINS – ALWAYS on time! Some people expect that in Morocco they will need to stop the train somewhere on the way but from our experience, trains were always on time and were also relatively clean and comfortable. We traveled by the train from Marrakesh to Rabat and to Fés. The reason why trains are always on time is, that in Morocco, all trains are owned by the French company ONCF.
4. FRENCH – if you want to have a proper conversation with locals, learn some basics of French. Almost everyone can speak some French. 
5. BEGGARS – especially in the cities you will meet many of them. We decided to implement the strategy of not giving money to anyone because after few people we would get frustrated that we cannot give money to everyone and that it is unjustness to give money to that old woman and to that disabled guy not. It is hard but I think that it is one of those things that everyone should somehow learn if he/she wants to think also about other things than about giving every minute money to beggars who are everywhere around.
6. ARGAN OIL – for those who use it. It is everywhere in Morocco. You can visit many manufactories and see how some Moroccan woman extracts the argan oil and buy fresh one
7. FOOD – one of the things that I am always excited about while traveling is obviously food. In Morocco, I would say that the food is very basic. Which is great for people like me who like to cook from basic ingredients and feel the taste of them. If you prefer some exotic taste and stuff like that, I wouldn’t go to Morocco for it. We ate mostly potatoes, vegetables, chickpeas, looots of bread, fresh juices and that’s it. 
8. DJELLABA – the really authentic thing that I will remember from this trip is this typical kind of “overall” that men and women wear in this country. I first encountered this cool piece of cloth in Leipzig. I saw my friend Rabi wearing it and fell in love with that. To meet so many people on the streets with that was really cool.

 

WEATHER

To be honest, we expected it to be a bit warmer and way more dryer but after 3 rainy days and with the average temperature about 8 °C we appreciated every sunbeam and were super happy about the following four days of sunny/cloudy weather. So next time – do NOT expect to go to the sea or something in winter in Morocco. 

And so here is how we explored the (super small part of the country) in 7 days!

MARRAKESH 

After 4,5 hours in the airplane (yes we traveled with Ryanair, yes I know that the company doesn’t treat the workers well and yes I know that flying is not ecological.. but unfortunately, the time is precious and the flight is till now still the most time-saving option when you want to travel 3500 km far), we arrived to Marrakesh and tried to get into the city center by bus. After 30 minutes of waiting for it we realised that the bus station was apparently only for locals to chill and talk because no bus stopped there. It was always super full and the driver just didn’t care and didn’t stop. Later we approached some guy and asked him how much should the taxi cost so that taxi drivers don’t rob us on the very first day. The taxi drive from the airport to the city center cost us 40 dirhams (1 dirham equals around 0,1 €) which was already haggled price (the standard price would be 70 dirhams). We arrived to our “hostel” and realized that it isn’t even close to that what we expected it to be from the pictures on Booking.com. The most characterizing word for that hotel would be “basic”. But finally, it was pretty OK since we didn’t spend there much time. Daniel didn’t even want to have a shower in that place :D. On the roof of the hotel (which was a nice bonus of that place), we met some Czech guy Vladimír who introduced us to the country and wanted to hang out with us. However, we didn’t have much patience to wait for him so we started to discover the city at night by ourselves. We lived just next to the most famous square called and just walked around the city. The chaotic main street that we took was full of annoying people offering us everything that you can imagine. “True” i-phones, tours, souvenirs, food, henna and I don’t even know what else. The main square Jemaa el Fnaa was also way different than my granddad described it. It wasn’t really authentic and on the market were basically two types of stands: with fresh juices and with nuts. There were also those typical guys with “dancing snakes” but not many of them. We also visited Marrakesh at the time of the International Film Festival  so we could watch some French movies on the huge screen on the square but none of us could speak French on the sufficient level so we rather discovered further. The city of Marrakesh is surprisingly expensive (especially if you are studying person from the Czech republic like me). The dinner in the touristic area would cost you around 80 dirhams. Conversely in the non-touristic areas, it is possible to have lunch for 15 dirhams (1,5 E)  We ate our first tajine, Moroccan national dish at some “restaurant” on the street and the guy gave us about 4 dishes extra to our order. I guess that it was already too late and he didn’t know what to do with that so he was that kind and gave it to us. I was super suspicious about it but finally, he really was just nice so it was a very positive surprise at the beginning! 

On the second day, I ordered a guide which showed us basically the whole center and did a super great job during his tour. He spent with us more than 3 hours and gave us a great background of the city and the country. After the tour, we borrowed bikes and went to the Manara Gardens. The garden was not really the typical garden that people usually imagine. It was just a large olive area with a beautiful and large reflective pool with its fine pavilion. We chilled there for some time and listen to some guy playing flamenco music on his guitar. After that we went back to the city center and went for a coffee to one random café and while drinking it, a really big storm came and it seemed like that it is the last one for that café. It is pretty obvious that in Morocco they are not really used for that kind of weather. In the night we met my friend Fahd (who I met in Madrid 2 years ago) for dinner and after that, we did a 1 hour night ride on the bike around the city again. And it was beautiful! With the beautiful moon shining.

ESSAOUIRA 

On the third day, we took a bus at 7:45 to the small coastal city called Essaouira. The weather was great that day and after arriving to our super cute riad (the traditional house in Morocco – for rich people and tourists:D), we went to the city market, bought some food and went for a whole afternoon walk on the beach and arrived after few hours to the Jimi Hendrix Café (which is a normal Moroccan café with the difference, that around 50 or 60 years ago, Jimi came for a tea and now the whole village is trying to catch some tourists on this information:D) We saw people on camels, people surfing and we also met some guy who firstly wanted some money and when he realized that we don’t have any with us, he started to send us to the hell, wishing us death and other beautiful wishes :))

The second day in Essaouira was way slower. Unfortunately not really because of us but because of the weather. It was cold and rainy. Anyway, we enjoyed the day in our way and walked around the city, took pictures, went to the fortress and fish market, drank coffees, ate space cakes, had some hash, jammed with local guys and had a wonderful conversation with a guy from the dessert who fell asleep in the middle of our conversation when he was preparing some mint tea for us. 🙂 In the evening we went to a beautiful restaurant which was pretty expensive but offered a great variety of typical Moroccan meals and was really cozy. Somehow after dinner, I felt a strong need of having a glass of red wine so we found the only opened bar in the city and went for two glasses of wine which were approximately 2x more expensive than in the Czech Republic but it was worth at that moment. We also observed some drunk french jamming so the music was a perfect addition to our (already) romantic evening.

 

FÉS

People say that Fés is a “must visit” place in Morocco for its history and beauty. From Essaouira it took us 10 hours by train and by bus to get there but we decided to undergo the process since I really heard from different kinds of people that it is the place that we shouldn’t miss. One thing that is great in Morocco is, that the trains come ON TIME! Why? Because all trains in Morocco are under the French provider ONCF (which has for Morocco also many disadvantages – our guide in Rabat told us, that Morocco has to pay 30 % of all the profits to France and also pay many debts and so on). 

The accommodation in Fés was more expensive than in Marrakesh and Essaouira but we did the booking on the day of arrival so it might had been influenced by that. The guy at the reception in the hotel was very kind to us and offered us free breakfast. He also offered us a guide and I was a bit suspicious about the paid guide but finally, we agreed on that because we didn’t have any other option and it was recommended from everyone to hire a guide for the exploration of the medina (this is how the old center in every Moroccan city is called) in Fés. 

On the first day in the evening, we went for a  short walk which turned out to be 3 hours of walking and getting lost. We realized that the medina is not “magical and wonderful” at all. It was very confusing, dark, people were killing animals there(chicken and hen), offering hashish and so on. We couldn’t really get out from there and were after hours of searching super happy to be in our quite riad.

We started the next day with the hotel breakfast (which contained 3 types of bread, marmalade, cheese, orange juice, and coffee) and after breakfast, our guide came and we started the tour. He couldn’t really speak English and didn’t know almost any information about the places that he took us into (for example about one palace he told us only how big it is and who built it but when we asked for more he got angry that there is definitely NOTHING to tell us more about). We told him that we are not satisfied with the tour and he got angry and wanted us to pay him the tour but finally he just beg us to not give him a bad review in the hotel because he was afraid that they will stop having cooperation with him. He told us that he does those tours for 30 years and that all customers were satisfied with him. WELL. NOT SURE. But the most important was, that we got rid of him and didn’t need to pay 50 € for the stupid tour. Finally, we really enjoyed the city by ourselves. We walked on the hills around the city, saw the potteries with colours, saw locals playing football, doing handstands, listening to bad music from bad speakers and making fun of us. 

We concluded that the city of Fés is beautiful when you walk around it. But once you walk inside the medina, it is just very dark and confusing. But it’s only our point of view and it can be beautiful for others. Definitely it is a place to visit if you want to feel the Moroccan vibe and also experience place which is not that touristic like Marrakesh for example. 

RABAT

Before going home we wanted to visit either Casablanca or Rabat. I was pretty sure that Rabat will be the right option because Casablanca seems to be only an industrial place which doesn’t have much calmness and historic city center to offer. Rabat is the capital of Morocco and it was also on our way back to Marrakesh so it appeared to be the best option. We were actually planning to swim in the sea but the temperature was after 3 p.m. pretty low so we decided to spend the day in a different way. After the arrival (around 9 a.m.) we had breakfast at our hotel and observed the personal (or at least I did). Those guys there seemed to me bit “fake fancy”. They had nice dress code but were not really able too bring us things that we wanted, to prepare coffee or bring us yoghurt took ages (and in the whole “restaurant” were only 4 guests). And also when they laughed at us it was pretty visible that they have only 4 teeth in the front but the rest is missing. Overall the guys were super friendly so everything was actually pretty cool since we could see the sea, huge cementery and also the medina from the hotel restaurant. 

I found some guy who was offering a free tour so we met and walked for about 3 hours around the city and talked about so many things! About job possibilities in Morocco, political system, history, personal stuff and so on. The tour was super interesting and I was really happy that we did it because without the guy we wouldn’t get that huge background and such a huge amount of information about the country and people who live there. 

Rabat was for us the best place that we visited in Morocco. It had everything that we needed to finish our trip with a good impression and to come back satisfied. 

• Sun – it can sound crazy but we really didn’t have much sun during the whole week! In Rabat it finally came and we enjoyed it.
• No annoying people on the streets – nobody offered us hash and other stuff!
• Relatively “clean” – like many cities in Europe I would say 
• Modern & airy – some neighborhoods in the city looked modern and had a lot of space and it wasn’t that confined like in other cities in Morocco that we had been to

We woke up the last day and outside was so dense fog that we couldn’t even see the cemetery which was right in front of our hotel. So we took some wonderful pictures from the last day and went back to Marrakesh. And from there back home ( and we shortened the time in the airplane with two glasses of prosecco 🥂)

 

 

 

 

CIAOOO NEXT TIME!