It’s the weekend! Come wander around Tangiers with us

Everyone has time for wandering on the weekends. At least they should…
Come for a walk with us through Tangiers, Morocco and we’ll show you some cool stuff!The picture above is a party hall by our apartment. Actually right under our pillow, or so it feels like when the celebrations start.
The Moroccans love to celebrate weddings, engagements, babies, everything and in big style.
This is left over décor from the night before where red carpet rolled right down the steps to the driveway and candle laden walls lined the path underneath the twinkling glamorous chandeliers.
We thought of maybe ‘crashing’ an event but to be honest would not have even gotten on the red carpet wearing even the VERY best of our travel clothes!

Our walk has begun. It’s early.
We pop in for a coffee and a beachfront pastry to start.

We’ve developed a serious taste for honey here. It’s served alongside the baked goods and I don’t know…it works and we didn’t fight it.

Since it’s early we will probably catch these guys in action:

Something about this scene just draws you in.. You can’t just walk by.

Sometimes there are messages in the sand:

The world could use more of these messages.

Then we reach the camels.

We’re almost to where the new marina is being built and the end of the beach portion of our tour.

Let’s go to the Medina across the street! Markets in full swing.

This market has been here a long time. One question keeps popping up for me.

All these items are outside – how do they close shop at the end of the night? How does one lock up around here!
This pottery stand is 3d art!

Everyone’s just doing their thing. Like they’ve been doing for years.
Guy sitting drinking coffee in the sun.
Cat wandering around.
Plants absolutely flourishing in the sun.
Feels good to be here at this moment and just … be here.

Now we start moving into the Medina. Our 1st stop is coffee and Café Central ALWAYS.

As you stroll your eye is constantly roving.
So much to see.

As much as you want to take pictures of everything, sometimes they are lost in translation as you look through the lens.

As we walk along we pass an area of storefronts.. These are not as magical as I already know how they close up shop at the end of the day.
They too have interesting hookahs, rugs and silver tea serving sets on display in the windows.

This was just funny:

As you know it is customary for many women to cover up here.
This was just one of those – hmm interesting moments arising from my less traditional upbringing I guess – my bad.

So anyways here we are. Café Central.

Back at our favorite spot.
People watching and coffee drinking.

Nice break.
Moving on.

If you wanted to go to the Kasbah – it’s that way according to the sign.

Cool alleys all along the road to our next destination.

Its a vibrant maze of door lined cobblestone.

Colourful.

Candy for your eyes and iPhone!

There’s options of where to eat.
It’s eating time.

Shawarma (I thought it was Shwarma but everyone spells it the other way) is everywhere unlike hummus which as we found out in an earlier post is not.

So cheap too!

Why not tapas? Across from Casa Pepe (store that has wine – yay!) is a place you can go, order a beer/wine and basically sit there for hours as the bring one tasty dish after another.

First there is fresh bread, followed by a salad quartet (so good) then the chicken tagine (stew) comes out. Nope that’s not it – they keep coming!
Grilled fish.
Salty shrimp.
Finally we were like – STOP! We would come here often.
We love it here.
One time the waitress got into a legit nose to nose fight with one of the guys who work there.
Yelling, arms flailing.
We’re like – umm excuse me, where’s our tagine, fish and shrimps???

Maybe you had the Shawarma and you didn’t want to do tapas but its too soon to leave this magical place.

Then you go here:

The Numero Uno bar. This is where the cool kids hang out.
Hey Patti Smith was here!
Now it’s a lot of ex-pats who just want to get their drink on but whatever, the place has character!

It also has trivia and doo dads hanging everywhere so your brain doesn’t ever turn off!
Guess that’s what this is for.

Yes – the water bottle.
Ok not really!

As we start the walk back you can’t help but wonder how the heck older people deal with these stairs and elevations.

We wanted to pick this old lady up and carry her down the stairs.
Up the stairs – not so much.
Well I guess it keeps the body moving and the heart pumping right!

That was a quick Medina snapshot.
I’ve seen too many posts on the Medina that have way too many pictures. We get it, it’s an alleyway, it’s old.
Truth of the matter I get why they do that – this place has an ancient beauty.
The point is not to overwhelm you and lose your attention.

So now we’re back at the beach.
Camels have gone home.

People are gathering along the water to watch the sun drop.
One more stop somewhere with a good view.