Marrakesh I heart you

We are back from our exotic, hot hot hot (fried egg on the pavement hot!) week in the wonderful Marrakesh. Our trip exceeded over and above our expectations and we just feel so blessed and fortunate to be able to visit such a diverse culture which was a thrill for all my senses. Yes, I have been truly "sensed out" ! I could write a novel about our experiences but will try and keep it short and sweet.

Anyway, here are some of my pics... first the divine hotel and oasis of a pool to cool off in, I'm loving the palm trees. At night we sat around the pool and felt the balmy african warm night sky with a million stars above us and could here all the crickets and grasshoppers making their african night sounds...such bliss.

One of the riads we visited, these are unbelievably beautiful with hand carved ceilings, pillars and mosaic walls, also a lovely cooling off chill out zone from the busy, hot souqs/markets. This is just 1 of many stunning riads in the old town.

Then there were the souqs where much haggling was had, we spent more than we usually would on holiday and came away with 2 stunning Berber/ancient Moroccan styled carpets, some beautiful ceramic bowls, leather sandals and slippers and some beautiful jewelry-my personal weakness!

Amazing hand woven fabrics...we were lucky enough to see some artisans at work with their weaving and making leather goods.

Andy bought a basic terracotta tagine to bring back home so we could continue the Moroccan spirit of our holiday a little longer. The food was heavenly, lots of tender lamb and chicken tagines for those of you who eat meat, for myself as a vegetarian I had feasts of veggie tagines, couscous, chickpeas and yummy moroccan omelette's, not to mention the Arabic breads ...YUM x

The sweet treats were SUPER sweet and loaded with nuts, honey and pastries. Something for everyone to chose from. Can you see a little of the lanterns on the right hand side of this photo? I didn't take half as many photos as I should of, but the lantern shops were so ornate and beautiful, words cannot describe them.

They don't call it the pink city for nothing....

Getting lost in all the souqs and then into the medina where the locals live is such an adventure...and all roads generally lead you back to the main square Jemma-el-fna which is full of snake charmers, fabulous food stalls, traders and henna tattoo artists. We liked sitting up on the terrace of one of the restaurants and watching the square come alive at night from this during the day...

to this at night...

my photo's don't really do it justice but hopefully you get a feeling of what I mean

my two precious people xox

and finally an Arabic STOP sign to bring what could be an extremely long "me rambling on" post to an end!

Oooops I nearly forgot to add this in... some wool dyed with vegetable dye drying out in the sunshine :o)

what heavenly colours

Two nights before we left I did me some hooky time and made some granny square fingerless gloves , the colours of the wool above reminds me of them. I just made the pattern up as I went along, what do you think? they are by no means perfect, maybe you would like me to attempt to write a pattern out...(eek that will take some patience on my behalf) or maybe you can figure out a pattern fro yourself. Let me know what you think.

now for a slightly naff one of me wearing one...

if you are wondering what I'm holding it's a papier mache world made by a very clever friend of mine in South Africa, I thought it was appropriate with us flying to north africa for our holiday.

Well that's all from me for now, glad to be back in a way but also day dreaming of when we might go back xox