This morning we left Fez behind and set off in a private bus (thank fuck for that – the original itinerary said we’d be on public transport!) for Chefchaouen. The private bus was so we could stop here and there and check out a few things on the way, have a picnic lunch somewhere and take our time… it’s not my preference to turn a 4 hour drive into a 6 hour one, but if it saves us from squishing in with 50 or more, and a driver who’s likely on his phone and smoking while whipping around the mountains on the local bus, then I’m down with that.
We had a few photo stops on the way, this is one of the water reservoir dams that feeds Fez. You can see the waterline is way down on ‘what it is supposed to be at this time of year’. 
We also made a stop at an orange orchard so we could buy a few fresh oranges for our picnic. The oranges here are lovely, you can get large, cheap glasses of fresh orange juice in restaurants everywhere and the juice tastes slightly more like mandarins than the oranges at home. 
Everytime we get into the countryside, I can’t believe how green everything is…. the grass is lush and green, the trees are green, the stock looks fat and healthy… the drought at home is quickly brought into stark contrast.
Another stop we made was at an olive press co-op. Some of the smaller local farmers don’t have the expensive machinery required to press olives, so they bring their harvest here and their bags are numbered. They then wait their turn and put their olives through the press. The air felt thick and kinda slimy… the ground is literally dripping in olive oil.
I actually disllike olives, which is weird for me as I usually love savoury and salty foods. The smell here was getting to me quite a bit. Bags of olives belonging to different farmers.
A couple of the men who worked here – their clothes are soaked through with olive oil, their hands and faces black with oily gunk. 
This must be one of the few largely automated processes we have seen in Morocco so far… until now, it seemed like nearly everything is done by hand.
The first press olive oil is thick and green.
Everyone was offered a bit of bread to try it, along side other oils that had been processed for the second time and third time. I quite like my extra virgin olive oil, but not being a fan of things that actually taste like olives, I gave it a miss (good thing that turned out to be – at least two in our group said they paid for it as it went right through them and they were running for the bathroom a few hours later).
Anyway, back on the bus and a few kilometers down the road we stopped for a picnic lunch. Before leaving Fez, we went to an enormous supermarket and all picked up some tidbits for lunch. We had some very tasty sandwiches and wraps with meats, cheeses, nuts, dates, figs etc. We even managed to buy some drinks so many had picked up some beers to have with lunch. 
Hay stacks for the winter. 
Everywhere, you could see enormous rows of prickly pear. They use it for a few different purposes – hedgerows are grown to make fencing to keep their animals in. The plant itself is eaten in some dishes, and the flowers are used for a natural dye. At home it’s a noxious weed. 
About another hour or so down the road and we arrived at Chefchaouen. Chefchaouen is nestled between two mountain peaks – the word itself actually means ‘two mountian horns’ – and is located at 560m above sealevel, about 70kms from the Mediterranean to the north and 130kms from the Atlantic to the west. From this lookout we could see some glimpses of the blue walls this city is so famous for.
We arrived at our hotel Darechaouen and were greeted with cups of Moroccan mint tea and date cookies while they sorted the rooms out. 
We found ourselves being escorted to a lovely suite room with a large living room attached and a huge ensuite. Very nice!
After everyone had settled in, we went for a bit of an orientation walk around the town. Firstly up to see the mountain spring that feeds the town with fresh water.
After the winter snow melts, this spring will have twice as much water pouring from it.
Directly to the left of these four ladies was a bench with four men, presumably their husbands… “What you talking about?” – “Shopping” … “What you talking about?” – “Football”
Chefchaouen was founded in 1471 as a small kasbah (fortress) to fight the Portuguese invasions of northern Morocco. Many local tribal people, Berbers and Ghomara peoples, as well as Moriscos and Jews, settled here after the Spanish Reconquista in the medieval period. In the early 20thC (c1920) the Spanish seized the city to form part of Spanish morocco. Spanish troops imprisoned local leaders in the kasbah for several years and there is a decidedly Spanish influence to a lot of the local architecture and food etc.
The blue walls are what draws the tourists to town – it makes a stunning backdrop for photographs and is reminiscent of the blue-trimmed whitewashed walls of Santorini or Mykonos. No one is entirely sure why the walls are painted blue – there are several theories though. One popular theory is that the blue keeps the mosquitos away, another is that the Jews introduced the blue when they took refuge here from Hitler’s regime in the 1930s. Another is that the blue paint was brought down as leftover paint from what was used to paint fishing boats to the north. And yet another theory is that the blue symbolizes the sky and the heaven to serve as a reminder to lead a spiritual life. However, some locals apparently say that the town mandated walls were to be primarily painted blue simply to attract tourists at some point int he 1970s… which while far less whimsical, is probably far more likely.
And it works. Chefchaouen is a very popular tourist destination, partly due to its proximity to Tangier. There are over two hundred riad and hotels to cater for the influx of tourists – once largely catering to the European tourists (lots of Spanish arrive here at Easter and Christmas holidays), but now more commonly the Chinese tourists are here for their photos too.
The region is also known for its native handicrafts that are not seen anywhere else in Morocco, particularly Berber style woollen garments, rugs and woven blankets. 
Want to see my scoot?!
The surrounding countryside is well known as a prolific source of ‘kief’ – marijuana, and as we walked the town you would semiregularly get a strong whiff of pot as you rounded a corner or walked past a shop.
There are public fountains dotting the town that are gravity fed directly from the mountain spring – hundreds of years old, they have seen a lot of use.
There are quaint little alleyways in every direction, most of them steep and because of the fountains located around the place, most of the walkways were slightly wet and rather slippery.
Chefchaouen is also knowns for it’s remarkably varied and popular blue doors… so many gates and doors everywhere – some simple, some elaborately painted, some enormous and some so small I have to duck to go in.
This (below) is one of the most famous photo spots in the city… Samirr warned us that if there were Chinese tourists here, we would ‘have to come back next year’ rather than wait for them to finish taking their photos. The locals are completely over the habit of Chinese tourists to stand in front of any famous object and take fifty photos of themselves in a myriad of very posed positions (tbh, so am I – Iceland last year was a real test of patience on that front).
When we arrived here of course there were a handful of Chinese tourists hogging ‘the spot’ for their selfies and posing away for their friends with the camera… as soon as one moves out of the way, another will quickly jump in. Samirr’s shoulders slumped and he said, ‘I guess we have to come back next year’. Instead, as one (totally overdressed Chinese lady) was moving out of shot and another was about to move in, I very loudly and firmly said to their group ‘Thank you! Thank you! No people for a moment please!’ and unexpectedly, it worked! They all held back while our group took a few photographs of the street with no people. 
Samirr was impressed at my crowd management skills, our small tour group was pleased to have their chance at photos sans Chinese tourists, and I was simply stunned at the amazing beautiful blue colours of the steps on this tiny little street that attracts people from all over the world.
As we walked away from the area, everyone was thanking me for clearing the street, but after last year in Iceland where we would stand around patiently waiting for 10 to 15 minutes or longer, waiting for self-absorbed arseholes to get out of the way – I give up. You obviously need to speak up or you just end up wasting time or missing out… patented Mommy Voice for the win.
A little futher we came to an area of town selling pigments for the local craftsmen. 
I know it looks like the town is nearly empty in most of these photos – but this is just my judicious sense of timing. Pick a spot and wait for the person to move right out of frame and *click* before someone moves into the left of frame. But trust me, there were plenty of people around and the medina only became busier as the sun went down and the locals came to town for the restaurants and clubs.
The original 15thC kasbah which we may go visit tomorrow…
The town’s main square, which is pretty much at the bottom of the steep medina. 
Still.. there were further little alleyways winding further down the mountain and we were diving back into them to find a Berber carpet shop. 
As tradition dictates, one must go carpet/rug shopping when in Turkey or Pakistan or India or Morocco and well, nearly everywhere from North Africa to the Subcontinent!
Abdullah, our host offered us all sweet Moroccan mint tea… very sweet this time and quite refreshing. This is also part of the tradition, coming right before the selling! In Turkey, I think they have much more success with the selling part, as they often ply customers with beer and raki instead. Here, have a buzz, buy a rug! 
The group waiting for the rugs to start falling.
And so they did… Abdullah*, threw down about fifty rugs in total, all of them locally made by Berber tribes, and in a wide variety of colours and sizes. These rugs are unlike any I’ve seen before, predominantly kilim style and most of them asymmetrical in design – which makes me twitch like all giddyup. So I was pretty safe from any unplanned rug purchases.
(*We were fairly confident that Abdullah was stoned off his gourd which was vaguely amusing.)
Anyway after our rug shopping experience, where no one found anything they liked, we went to a restaurnt called, Restaurant Bab Ssour, for a lovely rooftop dining and some delicious local tagine dishes. 
The view across the medina from the rooftop terrace.
Goat cheese is a speciality local dish, served with balsamic. It was really good and had a smooth creamy texture.
Goat tagine with plums! The meat was just falling off the bone and absolutely delicious.
After our long day of driving followed by what was supposed to be a short orientation walk (6kms), we head back to the hotel for a vodka tonic and crashed in our big luxurious bed.
Some cute churches, and everything all sweet and fabulous… 
Until we encountered kilometres and kilometres of trucks all lined up in a dead stand still. For a while we thought it might be some sort of rolling blockade protest – people around here seem to be constantly protesting something. Or perhaps they were all lined up waiting for a weighbridge station, given how politely they were all lined up on the right and letting the cars pass them. We then came across this – the lane we had been travelling also at a dead stop of cars. Bugger, we thought – it was obviously the queue for the Polish/Lithuania border. So we pulled up behind the blue car in the photo below… 
At this point, one of the truck drivers (most of whom were not in their vehicles) came over and told us to drive around. He pointed to the licence plate of the blue car, Belarussian, and he gestured for us to go around (our vehicle obviously had Polish plates on it). So we dutifully went around and ended up at the top of the queue:
Whereupon it became obvious that we were in the middle of the military checkpoint to enter Belarus! Which meant we were miles from where we were supposed to be, and well and truly inside the borders of Belarus! Fark!
Now we knew when we set out that there were two routes to get us to Vilnius, one of which was slightly shorter and chopped through the corner of what is effectively the dictatorial presidential state of Belarus and the other which went only through the border between Poland and Lituania. Now, guess which route yale somehow programmed into Wayz…?
The countryside was simply stunning though – there is a beautiful quality to the light here (once you get out of the cities).
Honestly, I grabbed these shots out the car window as we sped past and they have not been altered or had filters added or anything.
Stopped at a servo for a fortifying something something after our little run in with the Belarus Border Force guys.
WWII memorial in a little town on the way.
Oddly, the Polish/Lithuanian border was far more like what we had been expecting – almost non-existent. Being both part of the Schengen Agreement, there is pretty much borderless exchange between the two countries. We did see some guards in a jeep on the side of the road, but they weren’t doing anything at all.
The delay set up back a little arriving into Vilnius, but we arrived found our B&B and got settled pretty quickly.
The B&B is in an old building with massive oak beams, exposed brick and stuccoed walls and old chunky furniture, right in the middle of the city. 
After our adventure just driving here today, we decided to try and find some local food for dinner. yale scoped out this place on Trip Advisor and it had the two most desireable elements we could have asked for, 1) great reviews and 2) mega close proximity. Because it had been a long day already.
We walked in and there was a wait for a table. The restaurant didn’t appear to be very big so we were a bit disheartened and I was considering looking for other options, when it became apparent that there must be more space off to the side of the entrance and perhaps downstairs as well. We didn’t have to wait too long for a table and were led downstairs through a veritable rabbit warren on cosy dining spaces.
First things first – a drink! This place does paddles of brandy tasting so we thought we’d give that a go.
From the left, very drinkable with cherry flavours, quite sweet with honey overtones, something akin to metho, disgustingly strong liquorice shit, and slightly less strong but equally disgusting liquorice shit! Still, most of it went down just fine.
For entrees, everything looked really good on what is an extensive menu. We ordered a few plates to try – fried cheese with bell peppers (effectively jalapeno poppers – which seemed odd for Lithuanian cuisine, but my knowledge there is quite limited).
Next we tried the ‘thick and creamy wild mushroom soup’… which I tried and exclaimed “I hate this place! Best mushroom soup I have ever had, and it’s in bloody Lithuania!”
yale also ordered a second entree of meat dumplings served with sour cream and some sort of nutty soupy broth stuff. It was very tasty – somehow just the right amount of salty.
We had finished the brandy tasting paddle and the beers etc, so yale ordered a couple of meads and a homemade vodka. On the left honey mead, the vodka (average, but we may have been spoiled of late) and some god awful herbal mead shit that was 75% alcohol! Man that stuff is strong.
Dinner consisted of venison meatballs served with spinach mashed potato, loads of beetroot and a cranberry/blueberry sauce. Delicious.
And yale had some enormous dumpling things filled with mean and drowning in a thick mushroom sauce.
After dinner (and all those strong drinks) we barely managed to find our way out of the hidden tunnels of amazing foody goodness.
We want to get a full day to check out Vilnius tomorrow and both of us have laundry that needed attending to so we head back to the B&B for what was supposed to be an early night but it is already getting close to midnight. Again.
Breakfast from Mozart’s Cafe which is the Grand Hotel’s restaurant… of course with clock outside the breakfast room.
After breakfast, we had arranged a private transfer to the train station having discovered it was pretty much the same exorbitant rate that the rip off artist taxi drivers and Uber drivers were charging from the train station anyway… only this way we would have a fancy car and a nice man helping us with our luggage. Worked well and we got picked up right in the pedestrian square in front of the hotel.
RMB: That column on the right shows how late the trains are. Photo was taken 20 minutes ago.
At one point a well dressed lady on her phone sat down on the piano stool with no intention to play the piano and was patently ignoring the dirty looks people were giving her for using the stool for a seat and not playing (station’s fault really for not providing enough seating and many were sitting on the floor), until some kids came along and started mashing the keys incoherently which eventually forced her to relinquish her position so she could stay on her call. Gotta love kids – they don’t care.
We get up to the platform and see the signage is telling us that yes, this is the train to Krakow. Our previously posted 90 minute delay was now showing a 110 minute delay, so we found ourselves standing around on the platform with a bunch of Czech people who looked confused. I spoke with them and they said they didn’t think this was actually the train to Krakow. FFS. They seemed to have a slightly better knowledge of what was happening than we did – so I thought we’d stick with them until we were sure this was our train… last thing we needed after over two hours of waiting was to get on a train going somewhere else!
We settled into our compartment and were hoping for the best. Two people came along to talk to us, neither of whom spoke English so we were still a bit ‘Errr…?’ until about 20 mins into the journey a conductor came along asking for tickets. We handed over our ticket and she didn’t express any alarm about us being on the wrong train so we took that for a good sign. 
The next six hours passed in a blur of forrest and small towns with the occasional stop to not pick up anyone and seemingly not really to let anyone off. The train was more than half empty so I have no idea how this is at all profitable to run.
So, we know we are going to arrive into Krakow station a full two hours late. Yay! Which means that we had been on the phone from the train trying to make sure that our hire car would still be able to be picked up. We were concerned that their office may have been closed. Turns out that was an impossibility, they don’t have an office, they have a guy who meets people at a pickup point in the main carpark to hand over keys and sign paperwork so we had the hire car main office people trying to track him down to make sure he could meet us in the carpark still.
A little further down the street, I found a famous bakery called Bäckerei Möbius that has been here since 1908, so we stopped for aSchwarzer Tee and some schnecken before doing another quick turn around the city.
Memorial marker for a place where a medieval church had been but had been destroyed by bombing in WWII.
Der Cholerabrunnen – the Dresden Cholera Fountain – was constructed in the mid-1840s for Baron Eugen von Gutschmid as a celebration of the sparing of the city from a Cholera epidemic that ravaged the region in 1841/2.
No idea why, but it is covered in lizards…
A nearby restaurant shows its ingenuity in getting around language barriers on menus.
Advertising for a high-end jeweller – let’s not muck around, let’s show them we can make elaborate Rennaisance/Baroque masterpieces! Bit much for everyday wear, I think.
The Semperoper Dresden looking much more impressive in the morning light.
The back of the Katholische Hofkirche… needs some serious restoration work done. I think many of Dresden’s buildings could do with a bit of time under scaffold being cleaned – they appear to be wearing most of the 19th/20thC grime that most other European countries have long since cleaned up.
We also stumbled into some open stores – at least two of which were perennial Christmas stores! Exactly like the one we saw in Quebec in July – only with a clean, crisp, minimalist Nordic / Ikea feel to it.
Also doubled back around on the Frauenkirche, and it was open this morning so we were able to go in and enjoy the interiors.
Saw the strangest ‘weird tourist’ moment in the church this morning when a woman put her €1 in the collection box to pay for a votive candle, and instead of lighting it and saying a prayer – she gave it to her kid who pocketed it. No idea where they were from, but I’m never seen someone ‘buy’ a votive candle to take home before.
Neumarkt:
Our hotel. Lovely place, highly recommend it… and so cheap compared to Iceland! 😛 I have a feeling that is going to be a running theme for the rest of our stay in Eastern Europe.
On the way through – I saw this awesome luggage conveyor belt to help you get your luggage up long flights of stairs when there are limited or no lift facilities. Never seen anything so brilliant before in my life – Japan, New York, take notes: You need these!
The train was clean and comfortable though, but unfortunately, the onboard wifi didn’t appear to be working – that or my enquiring of the (possibily Czech) train conduction ‘Sprechen zie English?’ was off-putting and she decided not to tell us how to hook onto it. 😛
We arrived in Prague around 3:30pm, and then went searching for taxis. On our way, we ran into another Aussie couple (the Crumpler bags and the 4163 postcode on their luggage tag told us they were from Victoria Point – about 20 mins from where I live!), they too were looking for cabs. Directly exiting the station we found the cab rank – we needed to go all of 1.5km and they were going approximately 1.6km. Walkable – but not really when you are dragging suitcases over cobblestones. The cabbies were all charging flat rate of €15.00 or Kč500.00 to take you the 1.5kms to the city centre… which according to the online fare calculators, it should be somewhere around the Kč215.00 mark to do the trip. Fuck the taxi industry – no wonder they have such shit reputations. When I started working down the line looking for a cabbie who would agree to take us on the meter, they all refused and told me that there were taxis upstairs outside the bus station that do metered trips. Get up to that rank and find the same bullshit ‘private car/flat rate’, Kč400.00 to get to the city. Urgh. It’s been a long day so once I managed two vehicles for our newly met neighbours from home, we capitulated and overpaid to get to our hotel.
And just like Fontana Trevi – the place was overrun with people waiting for the clock to chime the hour. The town square is packed, but I know it will be empty tomorrow morning and I will be able to get some quiet photos of the clock like it may have been hundreds of years ago.
As it turns out the 
The menu was quite extensive, it was hard to choose what to have – it’s so nice to be back in the world of affordable food again!
Baked brie with cranberry sauce served with toast:
And we totally over orded for our mains (after Icelandic food being rather fancy and small plated): 
Roast duck in Blueberry Sauce:
Potatoes with cream, Niva blue cheese and a bit of garlic:
Beef goulash in a loaf of bread:
Apple Strudel with whipped cream and Vanilla ice cream:
This is happy full yale – who ordered everything he wanted and yet the bill came in just under AUD$70 including 3 pints of cider and 15% included tip! Madness. If everything feels relative to Iceland, I think yale can afford to eat again after his two-week crash diet of cuppa noodles and wraps made in the back of the car for lunch!
With full tummies and a cider buzz, we talk a short turn around the Prague Old Town looking at all the touristy shit. The place sure has changed since I was here back in 1995… so many visitors, and flashing lights and massage parlours ( 😮 ), and souvenir stores. And in a direct radius out from them – ALL the hugely expensive designer shopping brands, and I mean ALL of them. It’s weird, right? Tacky tacky souvenirs, and then across the street and fanning out – Tiffany, Boucheron, Cartier, Philippe Patek, Burberry, Louis Vuitton, and on and on and on. They’re all here.
