MOORISH TRAIL

I recently returned from a walking holiday in Morocco and Spain.  That's a slight misnomer, since we travelled between cities by train, bus or boat.  But we did some walking whenever we had our feet on the ground.

The idea was to follow the journey of the Moors from Marrakech to Madrid.  The origin of the Moors was among the Berber tribesmen of the Atlas Mountains.  We therefore began our journey by walking through Berber villages in the mountains and visiting a Berber market.  In the early part of the 8th century, the Berbers amassed their troops from various parts of the northern African continent in Marrakech and advanced northwards (as did we) through Rabat and Tanger.

It seems incredible now, but an army of around 30,000 men crossed over into Iberia and, within 8 years, occupied most of Spain, Portugal, the South of France and southern Italy, naming it Al Andalus.  They stayed for nearly 700 years, tolerating Christianity and Judaism, and changing the architecture and food of Spain forever.

We were able to see prime examples of the architecture, notably in Cordoba and Granada, both of which survived almost unscathed from the reclaiming of the lands by the Christian Kings in the 13th and 14th centuries.  We also sampled the food!

I have posted pics from our trip here - http://www.flickr.com/photos/7547548@N04/sets/72157633565125782/

SPLASH OF COLOUR

For this week's Picture Perfect theme, I immediately looked through my Morocco pics - all those shots of the fruit and veg markets, the carpet shop, the wool dying factory, the white buildings with red doors surrounded by the blue sky . . .  Or flowers, I thought.  But then I came across this - a flowering cactus in the Majorelle Gardens in Marrakech with their blue and yellow walls.  Perfect!