In May I spent a month of slow travel around Morocco. This is somewhere I have long wanted to go and have years of collected travel magazine articles to prove it. Morocco is really trying to attract tourists these days so I am sure it was easier to navigate the country now than a few decades ago. The place I enjoyed the most was Fes (Fez) with its busy old medina full of political and religious history. The city is also surrounded by a beautiful Mediterranean agriculture landscape. I loved the golden wheat fields in the process of being harvested and all the olive trees. I could not get enough of the shepherds out in the fields with their herds of sheep and goats. I fell in love with every donkey and pitied them for the heavy loads they sometimes were pulling.
Oranges were in season so I made the most of the fresh squeezed orange juice sold at street stalls. Every day I ate luscious local apricots, nectarines and peaches.....something I refuse to buy here in Hawaii because the shipped fruit are so disappointing. Morocco cities are very proactive in creating plazas and shady parks where their citizens can relax in the cool of the evenings although the parks could do with more weeding and trash cans. A few private gardens with paid entrance are very popular with the tourists. One curious thing I noticed was the presence of pink oleander bushes all along river and stream edges in the north part of the country. The seeds must get carried around in the water. It was spring time when I was in Morocco and the botanical highlight of the trip was all the wild flowers in bloom though out the ruins of the Roman city of Volubilus. It was just fabulous.
As usual after my trips, I have been sorting through my photos and here are a few garden related photos for you.
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| Sunken citrus grove at the ruined Badi Palace, Marrakesh Note the modern palms at the far right and the stork nesting up on the wall. |
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| View of the private Secret Garden from the rooftop café. Olive and orange trees plus lavender interplanted with pink flowering society garlic. Marrakesh |
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| Plants for sale on the street in the Mellah area of Fes. |
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| House door ways in a Fes medina alleyway. The one with all the plants is a Riad guesthouse. |
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| Public gardens outside of Fes city walls. |
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| Bunches of herbs being sold in the street by an elderly woman. All of them are used for making medicinal teas. |
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| The public Jnane Sbil Gardens in Fes. Jacaranda trees were in flower though out the city. |
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| Local olives being sold in Meknes market. Olives are eaten at every meal in Morocco so people there were very concerned with the recent big increases in cost of the staple food. |
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| A bougainvillea in full show...in an alley in Fes. |
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| A view of the Kasbah gardens and walls from the tower with the blue city of Chefchaouen behind. |
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| The ruins of the Roman city of Volubilis showing some of its wild flowers and the golden wheat fields beyond. |
Aloha
