Marrakesh to Rabat train ride

This is the second post for today as we get ourselves up to date. If you missed it, you can go back and read the earlier post here.

We were up and out by 9:15am Friday morning and on our way walking to the Marrakesh train station. We had tickets for the 10:45am train to Rabat.

Avoid the Marrakesh street food market!

Still getting caught up on our blog posts after our three day desert tour. So this post details our day on Thursday the 6th.

We stayed in the room all morning, getting caught up on internet and sorting through photos. You have to take a down day every now and again, and we were certainly due for one. But, we had to get to the train station to buy our tickets for Friday so we were going to have to get out and do that.

Besides, we just can't sit around doing nothing!

We were dreading the long ride back

This is the third and final post regarding our Sahara Desert camel excursion.

We were up right at 6:00am as the desert guide had told us. They had said to get up, watch the sunrise, and then we would be hopping on the camels and returning to where the van was and having breakfast.

We climbed the big sand dune and watched the horizon for the sun to appear. And then we heard a voice yelling at us.

Camel riding in the Sahara Desert!

This is the second post of the day as we're catching up from our three days without internet. So you might want to start with the earlier post if you don't want to miss anything. You can access it here.

We were up bright and early Tuesday morning and arrived at breakfast right on time. Apparently breakfast in Morocco is typically bread, crepes, two different types of jam, and tea and coffee. Oh, and olives.

This tour reminded us of why we don't do group tours!

Well, that was a pretty wild three days. As always, we're going to write  it up as three separate daily blog posts, so if you're just reading this one now... stay tuned because another one will be posted later today! Hopefully we'll be all caught up and back on schedule by tomorrow.

Okay, so we had booked a 3 day 2 night group tour to the Sahara Desert. We don't often do group tours because we like to make our own schedule. And we haven't done a group tour since we were in Iceland in the fall of 2012.

This tour reminded us of why we don't do group tours!

You may not hear from us for a couple of days...

We're up early this morning because we're heading out into the desert for a three day/two night getaway. No idea what kind of cell service we'll have where we're going, so you may not hear from us for a couple of days. I'll try and do up a blog post when we can, and worst case scenario you'll hear all about it when we return on Wednesday evening.

But, we still have to tell you about our day yesterday!

March Expenses

Wow. March was a great month, wasn't it?? We were in six different countries... Spain, Italy, San Marino, Monaco, France, and Morocco!

We had a fantastic time, and we pretty much did it exactly as we wanted to. But, it came at a price. Definitely one of our higher months for expenses. Italy is certainly not as cheap as Spain! We spent a total of $2,448 CAD ($1,836 USD) for the month.

(The following figures are all in Canadian dollars. For U.S. dollar equivalent, you can subtract about 25%.)

We like to try and blend in...

Many women in Morocco wear a head scarf...or a "hijab" as it is called in Arabic. Hijab is actually just the Arabic word for "cover". It's a tradition related to the Muslim religion, and it essentially is a means of displaying modesty.

I say many women, because while Morocco is a Muslim country, it is not an Islamic country. There is no law here saying that women have to wear a hijab, and it is not necessarily expected. While in Islamic countries (such as Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Iran) it is a different story.

And so here in Morocco, many women do not wear a hijab. It is a personal choice.

Every few steps there is something interesting to see...

We were sitting having our morning tea and hot chocolate (no, we don't drink coffee) when our host Marco came downstairs and offered to take us out  for breakfast. Sure, we're up for that thanks! We explained about our gluten intolerance, and he said he would do his best to ask about the ingredients.

And off we went on the busy inner streets of Marrakesh.

Why don't we just walk to the airport?

"Well, because people will think we are truly nuts!", says Ruth.

After all, who walks to the airport with their bags? Especially when it's 9 kms (5.6 miles) away. Apparently we do.

From where we were staying, I figured it was a 9 km walk. And either downhill or level the entire way. And, it was a beautiful day and most of the walk was on a paved path that follows the beach in Nice, France.

Monaco...country #32 for us!

If you're staying in Nice, you can't help but want to visit Monaco...the second smallest country in the world. And fortunately, there's a very inexpensive bus service from Nice to Monaco.

So yesterday morning we walked the 2.5 kms from our apartment down to the bus stop at La Port. Buses leave for Monaco every 15 minutes and cost only €1.50 ($2.20 CAD, $1.70 USD) for the 20 km (12 mile), 40 minute trip.

We made it to France!

I can't believe it took us 55 years to make it to France! Country #32 for us. Now, we're only going to see a tiny corner of the country so we'll have to make it back for more at some point. But at least we're here!

The day started off in Savona, Italy. Our train didn't leave until 1:30pm, so we did some computer time and then went for a walk along the waterfront in Savona.

We finally managed to have pizza in Italy!

Travel days are always interesting. You just never know how smoothly things are going to go! And we had quite a lot to accomplish. First, we had to return our little red rental car. We had picked it up at Bergamo airport exactly two weeks ago at 10:00am, so we needed to return it by 10:00am.

And that meant getting an early start.

Crawling across the top of the hiking trail...

First on the agenda yesterday was to get down to the main grocery store in the nearest large town about 4 kms away. We were originally planning on walking down, but with the time change here in Italy early Sunday morning, we were late getting started. The grocery store  closes at 12:30pm on Sunday, so we packed a  lunch and hopped in the car to make that our first stop.

When we had come through this town on Saturday, it was the middle of the afternoon and things were very quiet. So we were surprised to find it very busy, and we even had a hard time finding a parking spot.

It is definitely spring in northern Italy...

Well, our time in Europe is quickly coming to an end. We fly on Thursday from Nice, France to Morocco...Northern Africa. So we're making our way towards Nice. But first, we have to drop off our rental car Monday morning at Bergamo airport. So I found us a place to stay about half way to Bergamo.

So we did that drive yesterday. And we could have taken the toll road almost the whole way. But the more direct route was through the mountains on a narrow curvy road! That sounds much more interesting, doesn't it??