Lake District without the rain

It rained in the Lake District for most of the week but there were a couple of spells where the rain relented and the clouds rolled back to show off the lakes and mountains in their true splendour. These images are taken from the shores of Derwentwater just south of Keswick.

Skiddaw

Derwentwater

Late afternoon sunshine over Derwentwater

This is a good time of year to visit the Lakes despite the fact that my last two blogs have told you how wet it has been. The leaves are beginning to change colour and will be at their best in about three weeks - just about right for a half-term break!

When the sun shines in the Lake District

Living in the Lake District means you have to expect to get rained on every now and again.

Since I got back from Iceland in mid August it has rained on every day except four!


Sometimes its just drizzle and sometimes its a full-on monsoon cloudburst. But when the sun shines, you simply have to stop everything and take advantage of the opportunity.

Here are some pictures taken a few miles from Kendal that back up what I'm saying and which make me realise that living here is bloody brilliant!

The river is the River Kent and the trees are in Levens Park

The Roman Ruins at Volubilis

We moved north from Casablanca and passed through the cities of Rabat and Meknes. The temperatures were now as high as fifty degrees Celsius and our next destination - the city of Fez - was expected to be the next highlight of the trip. However, there was one surprise in store as we cut our way through the heat of the Saharan fringe. The road passed close to the Roman town of Volubilis and we were able to visit one of the best preserved Roman sites in north Africa.

Volubilis was extremely hot. In no way could what we experienced be described as normal. A super-heated breeze would spring out of nowhere, envelop you in its energy sapping intensity before it moved away leaving you thankful for the minuscule drop in temperature. The highlight of the site has got to be the well preserved mosaic floors of some of the buildings, but around these masterpieces stand the remains of columns, streets, arches and temples that stand sentinel over an utterly beautiful landscape that has probably changed little since the buildings were first constructed.

I later discovered that after the Romans left, the town was taken over by Berbers who maintained its importance as a trading centre until 1755 when the effects of the Lisbon earthquake damaged the town beyond repair. I'll let these images speak for themselves.

The Mosque of Hassan II in Casablanca

Our first day in Morocco was spent in Casablanca and Rabat and we visited two buildings that are of immense importance to the people of Morocco.

The Mosque of Hassan II is a truly remarkable building. To fulfil Hassan’s wish that the Mosque be built on water it was built on reclaimed land fronting the Atlantic Ocean. The complex consists of the Mosque itself, a medersa (a theological school), a museum and a library. The minaret towers over anything Casablanca has to offer being over two hundred metres high, which makes it the highest religious minaret in the world. The prayer hall is large enough to accommodate 25000 worshippers and was completed in only six years between 1987 and 1993. The size and the statistics are impressive, but even more impressive is the fact that the building and, more pertinently, its interior is utterly, utterly breathtaking in its beauty.

The Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca

Covered walkways outside the Mosque

The outside lacks the magnificence of the Taj Mahal. The mosaic ornamentation is finely designed and implemented but lacks the opulence of the Taj. The doors are remarkable. They tower over the worshipper and were made of titanium for strength and lightness, but also because other metals would oxidise and rust in the salty Atlantic air. 

The main doors of the Mosque

It is inside that the magnificence of the building is best illustrated. Intricately carved cedarwood panelling and finely chiselled masonry complement the perfect symmetry of the building. The interior is lit by natural daylight and by massive chandeliers. Just when you think you have taken it all in and feel there are no superlatives left to be used, the guide advises you that the massive roof is actually retractable so that worshippers can “look up and contemplate God’s sky”! 

Retracting roof panels made of cedar wood and weighing over twenty five tons each

Ornamentation on one of the Mosque's cupolas

Fine ornamentation on the pillars of the Mosque

Ornamental plasterwork in the Mosque ( approximately 1 metre wide)

Ceiling panel in the Mosque

The Prayer Hall of the Mosque

Below the prayer hall is another architectural jewel, the ablution hall with forty one intricately carved marble fountains and delicately ornamented pillars and panels. Below that there is still something left to take your breath away, a massive hall containing a hammam and a plunge pool of at least thirty metres in diameter. 

The ablutions room below the Mosque

The plunge pool below the Mosque

It is rare for non-Muslims to be allowed into a Moroccan mosque and this had been an experience not to be missed. The guide was knowledgeable and spoke excellent English and we must have been in the building for over an hour. It was doubly difficult to tear ourselves away from the experience. On the one hand you felt you could wander around for a lot longer and discover another work of art or example of superb craftsmanship, and on the other hand it was difficult to leave the cool of the mosque for the baking late-morning heat of the plaza outside.

Pretty impressive start to the trip don't you think?

Travelling through Morocco - from coast to desert

The  previous blog entries were of journeys made before I got my first digital camera and I didn't want to be bothered scanning photographs and digitising them. The next blogs are to do with my trip to Morocco - a trip I made with my middle daughter Tess in the company of a great bunch of people who made this a trip to remember. The hardest part of all has been choosing the images to include with the text because this is a country of immense beauty. It has a massive range of scenery but the Islamic art that we were privileged to see was as photogenic as the desert dunes, the mountains and the seascapes.

Morocco - August 2010

Babouches - leather slip-on shoes

For me, Morocco holds an enduring fascination. I once took the hour long ferry ride from Spain to Africa and although I didn’t try to get beyond the disembarkation hall, you just knew that you were a very, very long way from Europe. It is an almost wholly unfamiliar culture to me – Islamic and deeply traditional. Despite the years of French and Spanish colonial rule and the development of modern and cosmopolitan cities such as Casablanca or Rabat, a more distant past makes its presence felt. We were to visit places on our trip that have been recognised as the most beautiful of all Arab cities, cities which have a life still rooted in medieval times when a Moroccan empire stretched from Senegal to northern Spain. As a backdrop to these cities we would travel deep into the Atlas Mountains, where it is still possible to draw up maps based on Berber tribes, and travel through a country whose physical make-up is extraordinary. From our start point on the Atlantic coast we would be passing through three mountain ranges and three desert types before finding ourselves in one of the most evocative places on the planet – the massive sand dunes of the Erg Chebbi in the Sahara Desert.

Atlantic breakers at Essaouira

Sunset at Essaouira

The edge of the Sahara Desert south of Rissani Oasis

(Thinks: I hope I don't get that fat bloke!)

Along the way we will visit defiant mud-brick fortresses, groves of palm trees, foam crowned Atlantic swells of Tuareg blue beating against fearless strongholds. We will stroll through labyrinthine medinas and be pushed along by the flow of the crowd; we will be pressed against walls by donkeys and their broad burdens; we will be captivated by exotic sights, smells and sounds.

Food stall in the souk of Fez

Morocco is a magic carpet ride through remote mountain ranges and narrow gorges. It is a walk through rivers to timeless Berber fortresses that seem to have grown from the very earth they stand on. It is sky-high sand-dunes; it is a sweeping view through a wrought-iron window out over a green oasis in the middle of a desert desolation; a landscape bathed in a delicate mauve of the setting sun; cool inner courts with hand carved doors; exquisite patterns of handmade tiles extending from dusty floor to cedar clad ceilings. Morocco is fresh dates dripping with sweetness and mint tea drunk from tiny, ornately patterned glasses. It is a babouche-shod merchant in a bazaar rolling out one carpet after another for a potential customer. It is the call of the muezzin that penetrates into your subconscious before the sun turns the morning sky red; the drumming and jingling of the tambourine, the tinny clatter of the spoon-like “tars” or castanets and, everywhere, the din that floods into every narrow lane and alley of modern Arab music.

Calligrapher craftsman in the souk of Fez

Main entrance gate to the souk of Fez

Hotel courtyard and swimming pool

This is a country that has entered the modern age without turning its back on its tradition and ancestral culture and, just as the past peacefully co-exists with the present, diverse ethnic groups and religious communities live peacefully side by side. The medina, with its maze of lanes and alleys, and the ville nouvelle, with its broad boulevards, are both pulsing with life. People in traditional garments and regional costumes mingle on the streets with those wearing modern Western clothing. Social values are changing especially amongst young women; technology has more than a toe-hold. Satellite dishes, mobile phones, solar panels are as common as in any modern economy but, before you are allowed to slip into a false sense of complacency about the country, you notice in amongst the sports cars and scooters a camel towing a cart or a donkey straining under a gargantuan load.

The Kasbah at Ait Benhaddou

Dates for the November harvest

The Gorge at Todra

So off we go on our travels. Welcome to Africa; but be warned, they do things differently here.