Making our way to Morocco

We left San Sebastián on September 12 and started heading south. Our destination: Morocco. We first took a bus to Madrid.

We hadn’t really planned to spend much time discovering the city, since Jon and I had both been (separately) in our 20s. But once we got to our hotel around 5pm, we decided we needed to stretch our legs after being on the bus for 5 hours. The kids had watched 3 entire movies and were a bit cross-eyed. What else do you do in downtown Europe? We hopped on the subway and hit some of the sights, including the Plaza Mayor and the Mercado de San Miguel (with a small playground in between), where we had tapas for supper and strawberries for dessert.

The next morning we got up early and took a train to go further south.

It took 7 hours but we finally arrived in La Línea, a city on the southern coast bordering Gibraltar. We headed to England and crossed the border by foot into Gibraltar.

Gibraltar is basically a massive rock by the water with a small city nestled in below, connected to Spain by an isthmus. We took a cable car up to the top of the rock …

… and were immediately greeted by the macaques the rock is famous for.

They are mostly pretty docile but you can tell they’re used to being around people. One of them was very interested in Ella’s chocolate milk cup, so we quickly disposed of it and moved on. Getting rabies is not on the agenda here.

The 360 degree views at the top are incredible and we walked around for several hours. It was very hot but we only had a few hours and really wanted to make the most of it.

Facing south:

See that mountain in the distance? That’s Morocco:

Facing north:

We walked back down through the city. It felt a bit strange to suddenly be in such an English place. The people speak a dialect that’s a mix of English and Spanish. I wasn’t sure what language to speak. Gibraltar is very cute, but quiet compared to Spain. Everything shut down at 7pm.

The next morning, we took a 40-minute bus ride to Tarifa, a super cute beach-side town and walked from the bus station to the ferry terminal. The buildings by the water are all painted white, foreshadowing our next stop.

We took the hour-long ferry to Tangier, where we spent the night.

It was really hot and unlike the two previous days, we felt like we need a break from the sun and heat, so we hung out in our Airbnb for a while then went to discover the city and the Medina. We ate couscous and tagine and soaked in some incredible views among the city’s many stray cats.

This felt like a great introduction to North Africa… very hot and busy … very cosmopolitan and diverse… easy to navigate and communicate with the locals.

And from our place we had a view in the opposite direction of Spain!

We got up the next morning and headed to Fès, where we will spend the next six nights.

Comments

  1. Maureen BaylessSeptember 15, 2025 at 4:04 AM

    Your kids are so fortunate that you are taking them to explore these places. I've read about these locations for most of my life but I really had very little clue what they look like or are really like. If you had no time at all for homeschooling, this would still be a great education

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. SabSeptember 15, 2025 at 2:12 PM

      Haha, thanks Maureen! I hope the Department of Education feels the same way 😊

      Delete
  2. John HornSeptember 23, 2025 at 9:42 PM

    Is Ella's backpack ... huge?! Also, were there any pirates (ocean or land-based) that you encountered along the way? These are important questions, Sab.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Dad/Kevin/GrampySeptember 24, 2025 at 1:14 PM

    Gibraltar sounds like a very unique experience. The views from the top are amazing and the pictures of the “town “(?) are very interesting. I had no idea…

    ReplyDelete

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