Rabat

For me the highlight of Rabat was the kasbah. This is the ancient fort of the city, at the edge of the medina, standing over the Atlantic. Its narrow streets of whitewashed and blue-trimmed houses wound towards the ocean in one direction and down to ornamental gardens in the other. It had a cool tranquility in the heat of the day and a very Mediterranean feel.

A walk back through the medina and then the new town took the four of us to Chellah, which is a ruined 14th century city containing the ruins of a Roman settlement. The ruins were pretty impressive, and the lack of information turned us all into archaeologists as we tried to work out what was what. This turned out to be a lot more interesting than reading all the answers in a guidebook and John, a history teacher, helped the more ignorant amongst us. There were tiny Roman bricks in a ranged of colours arranged to make a parquet floor, walls and pillars and drainage channels, arches, tombs and pools to wander round and walk on if you chose. The Islamic period mosque was fabulous and the minaret was topped with a stork's nest. Looking round, we spotted dozens of these nests on other bits of ruin and on treetops. Along with the clacking of the storks' bills there was the call of a bird I didn't recognise but it was the most unpleasant bird call I have ever heard, semi-human like some sort of mocking goblin.

Moroccan food is looking very promising – delicious tagine of lamb with prunes, some interesting salads and everything served with good bread and spicy thick tomato dipping sauce or a small dish of bean stew. And the French legacy of patisseries is hard to miss.

It's an organized tour!

Yes, an organized tour – a group, a guide, an itinerary... and off we go. Hopefully not too toury – it seems that the transport and hotels are all that is organized and the rest of the time we're free to do whatever. The travel is nearly all by public transport, buses and the rather impressive trains, so it sort of works out as group backpacking. I've managed to pair up with a cool Aussie room mate and most of the group should be good travel companions too. So here goes... and here's the map that I've unashamedly nicked from the tour company's website:

Morocco trip map

Casablanca

It was a bit like coming home. Casablanca reminds of Malaysian cities. The grubby bustle, friendly faces, desperate driving and kamikaze pedestrians. The faded, unloved lovely architecture, here a mix of Moorish, French colonial and art deco, is being overwritten by ugly shopfronts as its facade crumbles, just like the streets of Chinese shophouses in Malaysia.

Hassan II mosque is quite something. Built at the cost of half a billion somethings – I forget what – it is the third largest mosque in the world and the pride and joy of most of Morocco. Those who were displaced, uncompensated, when their homes were destroyed to clear the site are said to feel differently. As well as looking enormous, it managed to look both traditional and modern. Its size, decoration and design are quite awe-inspiring and fairly took my breath away.

Newcastle

Over the years I must have been through Newcastle a hundred times on the train. Well, quite a lot, anyway. And I love it. If I’m too buried in my book to notice that it’s time to look out at the Tyne bridges I feel cheated, short changed. So this week I decided to get off. You hear enough about Newcastle, I know it’s got coast and culture and bridges, and … a certain something. I was here once before, at the start of my Newcastle-Edinburgh cycle ride. I didn’t have time for sightseeing then.

I found myself a B and B in Whitley Bay, and started my Grand Tour with a walk out to St Mary’s Island and lighthouse, reachable at low tide by a short causeway. Fortunately, the tide was low. The wind cut icy slices off my breath.

Over the next two days I visited galleries, museums and bridges – including an extra riverside detour to see the Millennium bridge opening, tipping itself elegantly backwards over the river. I whizzed about by Metro, gaped at sculptures, grand buildings, cobbled streets and city walls and thought of Paul wandering this city and tried to remember what he wrote about being uplifted by it. I walked the seafront from Whitley Bay to Tynemouth and took a trip out to the Angel of the North, sat on its feet and marvelled at both how big and how small it was.

What a city! I can see why it’s been voted the country’s best. Or something like that. It gets my vote for sure. And no paragraph in praise of Newcastle would be complete without mentioning the people. They really are warm and friendly and open, they call you "Pet" and bizarrely this leaves you feeling rather chuffed.

London