I woke up and looked at my watch and saw that it was 12:05. At first I thought it was midnight, but that didn’t make sense since I could see the sun poking through the curtains. We were both very surprised and unhappy to learn that it was already afternoon. It never dawned on us to set an alarm since we didn’t think we would sleep that late. We quickly got ready for the day. We missed the hotel’s buffet breakfast that ended at 10:30 so we walked over to Ty Potes, which is a nearby French Bistro, for breakfast. We both had their brunch menu that had a lot of different items – scrambled eggs, lox, baked potato filled with cheese, etc. We enjoyed the meal.
After breakfast we walked back to the Medina since we heard that some artists had set up shop there, plus we wanted to see the Kasbah. We walked through the Nouzhat Hassan gardens on the way, which was very nice.
We went into the Medina through an entrance on the east side, which put us in a different spot than the west entrance we used yesterday. However, it looked very similar and we didn’t see any artists.
There were stalls with everything you can imagine, including live chickens.
Using Google Maps we worked our way through the Medina to the Kasbah of the Udays, which is an interesting area around a mosque. We didn’t really see much of it since we are touring it tomorrow with the group. We walked through the Andalusian Gardens, which were pretty but not spectacular.
After leaving the gardens we walked along the water. The ocean is in the background.
Given our late start to the day we decided we had better head back to the hotel since it was already around 4:00 and our Tauck meet and greet dinner started at 6:00. On the way back we walked through the Medina again, and stumbled across a small shop (they are all small shops) selling some artwork that we liked. We bought some artwork for us and the kids. Here is me with the shop owner we bought it from, who is a friend of the artist.
We got back to the hotel around 4:45, where I am writing this.
After a short rest we met our Tauck tour guide and fellow travelers at the meet and greet dinner at the piano bar in the hotel. There are thirty people in the group. There are a surprising number of midwesterners on the trip. At some point I will list first names and where they live, as I have in past journals. As in most Tauck tours the travelers are interesting and well travelled. One couple has been on over thirty Tauck tours.
The food at dinner was very tasty and presented beautifully, and there was an incredible quantity. Shown below is just one of the many courses shown – lamb tagine. We sat at round tables of ten, and we got to know the people at our table.
After dinner we packed and went to sleep. We leave Rabat tomorrow and they pick up our luggage at 7:15 AM, so we need to wake up six hours earlier than we did today.
Jim and Barbara's Travel Journal 