Arrival in Marrakech...

To be honest, I didn’t have much desire to go on vacation in Morocco. I wasn’t impressed enough with what I saw during a day-trip to Tangier in 2010 to want to explore other areas. So when Jimmy said it would be a good place to meet Vivynne and family for Easter break, I started researching adventurous options that would concentrate on taking us away from the big cities. Booking the trip was further complicated by the fact that the tour company wanted to put us in large tourist hotels and we wanted to stay in small riads (traditional Moroccan houses converted to B&B’s). Luckily, I was pleasantly surprised by the entire trip. I have to warn you, we took a massive number of photos and have lots of stories to share...

Our day started very early and our four-hour flight arrived in Marrakech at 8 a.m. We were greeted by Khaled, our tour guide extraordinaire for the next six days. He introduced us to our minibus driver Mustafa, who proved to be a very competent driver. He parked as close as possible to our first hotel, Riad Aladdin in the old fortified city. Our luggage was off-loaded into a cart and we were led down a dark alley and through a small door. Inside was a peaceful courtyard with a beautiful rooftop terrace. We were happy to learn that we could check in early and upgrade to this lovely family suite.

We had heard from Vivynne before we left Holland that their original overnight flight had been cancelled due to an air traffic control strike in France. Stupid Air France should have rerouted them through New York, but instead insisted on flying them the following day from Orlando to Paris then to Frankfurt and finally to Marrakech, which caused them to miss two days and one night of their vacation. They finally arrived at 11 p.m.

Can you see the outline of the small door to our hotel?

There’s no way we would have
 found this place on our own