I'm sorry I'm not very good at figuring out how to arrange photos on this program. Maybe someday!
I went to Essaouira this past weekend, which as you can tell, is a coastal city, on the Atlantic, not the Mediterranean.
The walls and ramparts along the ocean were built fairly late, in the 1760s. It is a beautiful city with a really cool medina, loads of colorful people and tiny streets to wander around. It is much more laid back & calm than Marrakech. It's a former hippie hangout ('70s) and still attracts a lot. I saw a lot of dreds. The town seemed 'mediterranean' because there was a lot of blue trim on white buildings. Very pretty, very relaxing. Courtney and I had a nice walk along the beach (high 70s on Saturday), I miss the ocean- don't miss the snow & cold! Abderrahim is a tchr/trainer in Essaouira, traveling there every 2 months or so to observe teachers. A friend of his who lives/teaches there showed us around, took us to an awesome small, local restaurant with loads of little dishes of yummy things + crusty bread beforehand, kind of like tapas, and great fish for dinner! (and even had us over to his apt for a Moroccan meal). He also took us to a rooftop bar, for lack of a better term, where we heard Ghanaou music (sp?), a special type of music from this area, sort of african-jazz-fusion. It was great fun, could also see & hear the surf. For breakfasts, we went to a tiny sidewalk restaurant and had coffee and a large, flat, hot bread, fresh baked on a griddle with butter & honey, all for $1.25 ea., yum. We stayed in a very funky, yet inexpensive apartment, which I'll save for another day!
