September 2-4, 2024
Going to be combining a few days because we only had one port left, which was Tangier.
We woke up to a beautiful port in Tangier on Tuesday. We had an excursion booked with the cruise, Taste of Tangier. The excursion was advertised as a city tour of Tangier, in addition to a visit to Hercules Cave.
Our guide gave us a brief history on Tangier, and the different occupations of it over the centuries. One thing that was interesting, is that they seem very proud to point out all of the different buildings that belong to different countries. For example – here’s the palace for the King of Saudi Arabia- he comes here once every 20-30 years! And then the different mosques, the churches from the Christians, and the hotels owned by the Italians.
On our drive, we saw lots of camels, which wasn’t new to us – but they had a lot of baby camels! (Which was new). Tangier is also unique from the standpoint that it’s where the Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic Ocean meet. There was a sign that showcased this, but our group didn’t want to stop for a quick picture there.
Once we got to the cave, our group made their way down super quickly and we mostly had the cave to ourselves. As we walked in, one of the men that worked for the cave started to show us a cool photo opportunity. They said the hole kind of looked like the continent of Africa, I personally think you have to squint and turn your head to the side, but then you can see it.
There was a movie playing in one section, and we joined at the end of the English version. It had some incredible graphics, but we couldn’t tell what was being said.
The Cave of Hercules is located just outside of Tangier. According to legend, it is where the Greek hero Hercules rested after completing his twelve labors, and some say it is where he separated Europe from Africa. The cave has two openings—one facing the land and another, more famous one, resembling the shape of Africa, facing the Atlantic Ocean.
After we left the cave, we made our way to a lighthouse. Cape Spartel was built because of the number of shipwrecks in the area. In 1860, one ship carrying over 250 Brazilian cadets sank. It was because of this accident, that the Sultan agreed to have the lighthouse built at the urging of other countries that used this route for trade.
We hopped back into the bus and made our way to the Kasbah Museum. It was a short walk, but we got our first taste of walking through the winding streets in Tangier. The museum is perched on top of a hill, which means it has pretty stunning views.
This is when things took an annoying turn. Our tour guide said that we had 15 minutes to explore the museum, but didn’t really provide any highlights of things to see. Also, all of the panels and signs were in Arabic and French. (Which we understand that we are in a different country, hence the different languages… just made it harder to enjoy as we didn’t understand what we were looking at).
The architecture was incredible – and I’m definitely a sucker for mosaics. Andy found a staircase heading upstairs, and I didn’t really want to leave the main group. I had the sneaking suspicion that our tour guide wasn’t really paying too much attention to who was in our group and where we were all at. So reluctantly, I followed him upstairs and was quickly rewarded with a view of the mosaic floor from above.
We didn’t stick around for long, because the last place we wanted to be left behind were the windy streets of Tangier. We do think we saw some human remains in one of the displays, but because of the language barrier, we can’t confirm this.
There was a beautiful view from the museum down onto the water – and then we made our way on foot through the Medina. Lots of winding, teeny tiny streets, and a lot of shops. Similar to our experience in Egypt, it seems that every tour guide “knows a guy” and they bring us to their shop. This one was huge, but there wasn’t a lot that tourists would normally want to bring home. Big plates, vases, etc. that wouldn’t be easy to carry home.
We saw so many kitties all around. Black one, white ones, orange ones, they were so cute. We saw a lot of food left out for them, and even one dish with milk in it!
After shopping, we went to a cafe for coffee and tea and cookies. Honestly, we stayed at this place for far too long – there weren’t enough tables in the shade and it was hot. Some people in the group wanted to go shopping, and everyone was sort of wondering what was going on at that point.
We made it back to the ship and opted in to making the rest of the day a pool day.
As we were leaving Tangier, we went through the Straight of Gibraltar which is the waterway between Europe and Africa. As we were underway, we saw a large pod of dolphins following the ship.
We ended Tuesday with another silent disco on the ship.
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At Sea Days
I really enjoy the sea days because it means you can rest up, and the cruise line usually does a lot more activities. One of our favorites was Deal or No Deal, which we didn’t win big this time.
It was also Jon and Yvonne’s anniversary, so it was cute to see what the cruise does to celebrate milestones.
Our last day on the ship was at sea, which meant we spent some of our time packing up. We were grateful that we brought an expandable duffle – that way we could bring even more stuff home! (Including the port we just purchased!)
The last day, the kitchen crew put together beautiful displays in the Oceanview Cafe. It was so pretty to look at!
Up Next:
– Third half of the trip: Sitges & wine tasting!
Scribbles and Snapshots 