Chefchaouen

The bus journey to Chefchaouen was interesting at at times alarming. Well below the road up into the Rif mountains lay the remains of another bus which must have rolled many times. The countryside is surprisingly green and lush below the rocky barren mountains. The first sight of Chefchaoen was enchanting – a mass of white buildings huddled on the hillside.

This town is picture-postcard pretty. Our hotel is in the heart of the medina and from its roof terrace we have gorgeous views both down onto the town and up to the mountains. Its obviously a tourist mecca but not unpleasantly so. Walking around you constantly receive friendly greetings and if you decline an invitation to shop, shopkeepers simply smile and say goodbye, without even trying the hard sell. People offer directions when you're lost – although the medina is small enough that eventually you find yourself back at some place that you recognize.

Everything is blue. Front doors, at least the bottom half of walls and even the surface of some alleyways. Rounding each new corner, I reach for my camera. It's cutesy pretty. And so blue, so blue. Bright fabrics, clothes, leather slippers and a thousand tourist knick-knacks hang outside shops. Powder paint, or possibly dyes, are heaped in sacks, while other stalls boast huge baskets of herbs, beans, chillies and chickpeas. Boys deliver home-made bread to bakeries for baking as people don't have ovens at home. Through open doorways you can see carpenters or weavers at work in their dark front rooms. Old men in ankle length, pointy-hooded robes make their slow way between tourists, children careering down steep cobbles on bikes or scooters and the hundreds of people simply going about their business.

Yesterday, three of us walked out of the medina, across the river where dozens of women hand washed their families' clothes before laying them to dry on the grass. From here we followed a path up the hillside to the remains of a ruined mosque. The views of the town from here were wonderful and we sat in the hot dry sun, enjoying the peace. We climbed the tower of the mosque and looked down on the cemetery a little further down the hill. We returned to the town on the path through the cemetery, where even the graves were painted white and blue, before settling down for more refreshing fresh juices, mint tea and salads.

This place is so calm and friendly and relaxing, it would be easy to stay longer.

Tangier

A five hour train journey took us from Rabat to Tangier. I settled down to listen to my Arabic lessons on MP3 and Katrina got her phrasebook out. This aroused the interest of some of our Moroccan travelling companions, so soon we were involved in live lessons which seemed to amuse everyone in the compartment. Ester quietly stayed out of it most of the time, though I'm sure that, being Dutch, she would have no trouble with all these throaty h's, ch's and r's. One man put huge effort into making these sounds for us, showing where he put his tongue, before collapsing into laughter at each of our attempts.

It's been fun to try a bit of Arabic though, and it certainly causes much merriment whenever I do. The rest of the time I have been trying to resuscitate my nearly expired French. I was quite surprised how many words came to the surface, sometimes even accompanied by a smidgen of grammar, but often after just a few words I get the response, “you're English, aren't you?” which stops me getting too full of myself. However, I find myself shamelessly unembarrassed – old age has made me less shy about flaunting my shabby languages. So what do I find here in Tangier? The language of choice is Spanish. Luckily, Ester speaks that very well.

Tangier was billed as a sleazy port town populated by hustlers, petty thieves and prostitutes. The reality was much more pleasant, the level of hassle nothing but the invitation to buy things I didn't want. The medina was wonderful – beautiful colonial buildings, winding streets (I've a feeling there are going to be lots of these) of cafes, homes and shops, which seemed to bear no relation to the map.

We were on our way to the kasbah when we were befriended by someone who assured us that he wasn't a guide. He proved to be quite useful, so why he had to lie about his role beats me, but there you go. He earned his tip but predictably asked for more. According to him, nearly every house in the kasbah was owned by one movie star or another; I tuned out as he reeled them off at each front door. No doubt a couple were true, but I was just waiting to see the house where Elvis still lived. It was all harmless fun and it certainly saved us from being lost in the maze of nearly deserted alleyways. From the kasbah it was easy to find a route back through the medina by following the tourist shops. If an alley turned out to offer only bucket and mops shops or whatever then we simply turned round and followed the shiny slippers and carved camels till we found ourselves back on familiar ground. At a large open air cafe we sat back and drank mint tea – a delicious blend of green tea and masses of fresh mint – and watched the world go by.

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

Keswick, Cumbria

I booked a little photography holiday in the Lakes. It happened to coincide with the most amazing week of weather: sharply cold starry nights and bright cloudless days, the morning sun quickly melting the frost.

The photography course was a farce – the tutor did no teaching whatsoever. But the other students were a great group so despite the lack of a course, I really enjoyed these four days. Much merriment and mirth, and if the butt of the humour was mostly the tutor, well… that was to be expected. He was a dithering idiot who only sprang into life when we got off the bus and he legged it off into the distance to take photos on his own. Evening sessions were painful as he tried to get his slideshows to work. After two days he succeeded – only to show us some pretty shoddy images. "The point is," he explained, "these photos aren’t of slideshow quality." Quite why we were looking at them then, we never found out, and he never discussed a single picture he showed. The pinnacle of evening entertainment came the night we slipped out one by one, each new escapee being greeted with applause, laughter and a drink in the bar.

Just so you are warned, this was an HF holiday and the tutor’s name was David White. Some of my fellow students told me that HF’s other tutors are much better, so don’t let me put you off too much – apparently this David guy is well known as a hiccup in the system and yes, a waste of space.

But for me, the week wasn’t a total waste. I learnt lots from other course participants and saw some bits of the Lakes I hadn’t seen before. I made friends with some great people and had a laugh. Tried some very good local beers in delightful pubs. Realized I had learned something – that I’m a better photographer than at least one professional. And when the four days of the course were over I found myself a B and B in Keswick and treated myself to three fabulous days of walking.

Walla Crags, Derwentwater and Skiddaw were all interesting and scenic. Skiddaw was a hell of a steep climb on a very uninteresting path and coming back down was agony on the old knees – I had a sit down and thought of waiting for snow in the hope that I’d be able to slide, but as I said, the weather was just too good.

But the most stunning walk I could have hoped for was Wythburn to Rosthwaite - a route I conjured up from a promising bit of map combined with a bus timetable. My path followed Wyth Burn, climbing steadily over long grass, frozen bogs and the open landscape of the wide valley, with not another person in sight. The burn was half frozen, icicles hanging from every little drop and fall while the water rushed over or behind them. The crust cracked on the ground where I trod, steps crunching into softness. Leaving the burn, a steeper climb took me to Greenup Ridge, where the views both behind and ahead down the other side were breathtaking. There were quite a few people about on the ridge, breaking up my perfect solitude and silence, but even so the route down Greenup Gill could hardly be described as busy. The burn was frozen here too, as was the path wherever the water poured motionlesslessly down it.

This was my last day, appropriately, as I would have been hard pressed to better that day’s walk. A stunner.

View back down Wyth Burn, looking towards the start of my walk. To see some more of my Lakes photos, go to: http://www.flickr.com/photos/geckozo/sets/72157604140160557/ for a slideshow.

Winter in the Scottish Borders

The novelty of cold wears off fairly quickly, but not the novelty of frost or snow. What is it about snow that brings out the child in us? Or at least in me... and makes me rush to pull on boots and dash outside to kick through powdery piles of the stuff, scoop it into my mouth , take pleasure in leaving the first set of footprints.

We had a few good snowfalls over the new year and I enjoyed hours of peaceful solitude walking by the Tweed, listening to the tight brief creak of my own footsteps.