A Quiet First Afternoon

After being dropped off and checked into the hotel, we had a few hours to wander the hotel and its extensive gardens.  We also had a bottle of champagne and some snacks to greet us.  The hotel, the Mamounia, is pretty incredible -- one of the nicest hotels we've ever stayed in.  The management nicely upgraded us to a suite.

And, it's an old school Moroccan suite -- a half bath and walk in closet off the interior hallway, which leads to a beautiful sitting room, and then a massive bedroom.  The Islamic preference for arches is seen in the entries to each of the rooms.  Also important is the two balconies for our enjoyment.

The bedroom.  Note the ornate tile work

on the bottom quarter of the wall.

Ah yes, before I forget, I must make a note of the beautiful new airport.  From the inside the ceilings are high, and from the outside the design is spectacular, swooping, bending, and soaring.  The photos won't do it full justice, as I was hurrying to both take the pictures and get in our vehicle.

So the design of the airport is very impressive.

The photos do not do it justice.

Eager to stretch our legs after the Dulles to Frankfurt to Marrakesh,* we walked around the 8 acre garden of the hotel, before returning to our room for one glass each from the complimentary bottle of champagne.  We sat on our third floor balcony overlooking the huge hotel pool (it's heated, but we did not realize that, so we did not bring swim suits) and managed to finish the champagne and some snacks, including huge strawberries, they had left for us.


The view is full of palm trees, flowering bushes, and much more greenery than we expected.  Marrakesh (I'm using the English spelling here, primarily so I don't come off as Mr. Tourist Language Snob by insisting on the French "Marrakech) and surrounding environs are much more green than we expected (no, it's NOT the royal "we" -- this "we" reflects Carol's thoughts too. But now, because you assume Glen Bolger was writing about himself as the royal we, Glen Bolger is going to have to refer to himself in the third person at times in the blog).

One of the interior doors in our room.

Beauty from the room

The view from our room, including

the pool and much of the gardens.

(Apparently the snacks is a daily thing here -- yesterday, our first full day, we returned to a welcome of fresh plums.  Readers: You sure have a lot of parentheticals.  Writer: We do.)

We talked of travel, Morocco, and other news while watching the sun go down, reflected on the Atlas Mountains off in the distance.  We could even see snow on the mountains.