I can’t be sure, but I doubt any country celebrates it’s monarchy as enthusiastically as the Dutch. I hadn’t planned on it, but my brief stopover in Amsterdam, Netherlands coincided with the national holiday of Koningsdag, or King’s Day, preceded by Koninginnenacht, Queen’s Night. Coming directly from another monarchical system, I reflected on the difference between the…
On our way home from the French countryside, we stopped by Portbou for a celebration honoring the memory of Jewish philosopher, Walter Benjamin, who, while attempting to elude the pursuing Nazis during World War II, committed suicide to avoid capture. While there, we caught a glimpse of award-winning German director, Wim Wenders. That’s him near the…
Tangier, Tanger, Tanja (طنجة), whatever you call it, is a city full of intrigue and secret histories, or at least that’s what I’ve been told. Yet, despite our investigation and openness to experience, it was much like every other large city. To be fair, the mystique was surely exaggerated in the first place. As a…
On our way back from Spain, we stopped off to see some of northern Morocco. In part, this was to enable me to finally finish my self-appointed task of seeing every UNESCO heritage site in Morocco. We stopped in Tangier for a few days (that’ll be a post later), then headed to Chefchaouen, a small…
Am I a tourist? What makes a tourist a tourist? How long must one live in a place to not be a tourist? Is it merely a state of mind, or something more substantial? If I wasn’t born in a particular place, will I forever be a tourist there? I have done my fair share of…
Most people, me included, don’t seem to understand the extent of Phoenician, Greek, and Roman influence along the North African coast, but especially Tunisia. A Euro-centric bias makes us forget that the Mediterranean basin, symbolically “center of the Earth”, has a southern area that was, and remains, nearly as important and advanced as its northern…
Just over the Portuguese border from Spain is a little village with a big castle called Castro Marim. Tourist season was over, so we missed the shows that they apparently put on, which include dramatizations of medieval life and fighting knights. Unlike other castles we have visited, this one does well to show what life might…
There was some sort of celebration today that involved military displays with cannon fire. These girls danced wonderfully, for whatever the purpose, and shook their shoulders like nobody’s business!
After spending a few days along the northeastern Spanish coastal region known as Costa Brava, we took the train to Barcelona for a couple days as a stopover on our way to Seville. The capital of the Catalonia region, much like elsewhere in the area, there were flags everywhere in support of seeking independence from…
Not to be confused with the city of Agadir that was destroyed by an earthquake and later rebuilt into a tourist destination, but rather, the traditional buildings that gave the city its name. Throughout southern Morocco are the remnants of what was once a thriving Amazigh (Berber) culture that extended over most of North Africa. Before the arrival…
