The Chocolate Rucksack

Brocante

2011-09-01T02:50:00.000-07:00

It's been a while...largely due to me scribbling like crazy to finish my manuscript for my MA in Writing for children. So my post will be short and sweet but long enough to be able to share my new photos with you.

But before that- a piece of news.

My new card business called Kidogo Cards is now on Not On The High Street. (Incidentally my husband's furniture is there too...so I'm taking this opportunity to plug his work...very beautiful- do have a look!) Anyway, you can order any card from my online shop or ask me to personalise the greeting on the front. Alternatively do keep popping back to my own site Kirsten Wheeler Photography where all my latest photos will be uploaded and available as cards, prints and canvases. Do email me if you can't find what you are looking for.

So...back to our beloved France for a summer break. This time to the beautiful Lot region in the South West.

We had a morning paddle in the warm, shallow waters of the Cele river which was fringed with fig and walnut trees. Then pottered past villages,which looked like they were straight out of a fairy tale. Renaissance houses built in the medieval style, old cottages which looked like they were made from gingerbread and old abandoned barns with open granaries gaping from the top floor.

We were heading for Grande Brocante in the old market town of Figeac, where the town's houses cluster around the 9th century abbey.

The streets were bursting with an eclectic mixture of people and stuff. Antique memorabilia neatly arranged on lace tablecloths and old junk casually chucked in rusty cake tins.

Old women, glasses perched on the end of their nose, notebook in hand, wove in and out of the stalls, past the headless dolls and plastic smurfs towards the antiques and collectibles.

What did we buy? An old set of well worn copper pans in need of a very good clean. Ideal for cooking a cassoulet for our supper with all the yummy french produce we had bought from the food market.

Snails, slugs and sausage forest.

2010-06-22T06:54:00.000-07:00

.........continuing our ‘France Passion’ tour through France in Rusty, our old camper van.

It was soon time to move on, away from the river and into the wine region of Bergerac. The grown ups decision, obviously! It was amazing how quickly the landscape changed from toffee coloured cliffs and wide rivers to rows of craggy green vines on gently undulating hilltops.
Our overnight France Passion stop was at Chateaux….Whilst we sampled the local rosé, the boys were entertained by the family’s donkeys and sheep. We camped next to their stone farmhouse guarded by an old fat cat. Our aim was to reach the market at Ste Foy le Grande as early as we could in the morning as were told it was the best one in the area......so an early night for us all.

We were not disappointed. Ste Foy Le Grande was a delightful old town with a large traditional market.

Every street is was bursting at the seams with local produce and we were entertained with puppet shows, jazz bands, violinists and bird warbling!

Laden with food, we searched, as always for a riverside spot. We ate a lunch of Saission de sanglier, Comte cheese, strawberries, fat tomatoes, crinkly lettuce, even saussion kangaroo, accompanied by the boys’ rendition of ‘Tie me kangaroo down sport!’

Off on the road again, we discovered a tumbled down farm building, an Angora farm. Angora La Brosse at La Chapelle Blanche Saint Martin. Red geraniums bloomed from wooden widow boxes. The shutters were closed but a charming old lady appeared in her work overalls as soon as she heard the van, desperately keen to show us round. She owned over 40 goats with amazingly soft angora coats which she has been farming for over 25 years. She sold the bags of angora fleece in the village markets through out the winter. They are dipped in natural dyes in every shade imaginable.

In the afternoon we popped into the snail farm at Vaunac L’Esargot du Perigord and were shown around the vast damp polytunnels housing 1000s of snails. We were very sad that we would not be around in the area in the evening for a tasting session and even a meal of snails if we were so inclined!! Shame!

However we were to see plenty of ‘wild’ snails at our next location. The Forêt du Verger at Amboise in the Loire valley. We parked on a desolate track and hung our silk hammock from the oak trees. It was great territory for our little bug hunters and we counted hundreds of brown sticky ‘poop’ slugs on our forest walk. (Suitably named). In true tracker style, the boys made sure they could find their way back to Rusty by laying down arrows made from sticks. Whilst lying in the hammock later with my youngest child, he mistook the sound of acorns falling onto the van for Daddy bear, growling. (He is deaf and wears cochlear implants) Both boys were desperate to see Daddy bear, so they concocted a cunning plan. The boys asked me to cook some

sausages for the animaux sauvages to have for their supper and the sausages were dutifully placed at the side of the van. The boys went to bed, noses pressed against their window hoping for a sighting.
In the morning , great excitement! The sausages had been nibbled and one had completely disappeared! However I did see a poop slug sliming away from the scene!
The forest proved to be a real favourite for the boys and they hoped to return to ‘Sausage forest’ (as they now called it), again one day.

We stopped at Vendome for our lunchtime break then headed off to the deer farm, Deer La Freme de L’Etang in Epuisay .We parked our van close to the fence. What a view!

Hundreds of deer as far as the eye could see. There were breeding adults with their new born fawns in the near field and the young deer in the further fields. They would then go for slaughter and sold as deer meat. After a personal guided tour we visited the shop and bought pâté, mousse and little deer saussisans which were perfect to take home for the boy’s school lunchboxes. At night we heard metallic scraping as the stag rubbed his itchy antlers on the wire fence. By morning ragged bloodied scraps of skin hung off his antlers and he was obviously relieved from his night time scratching.
We ate our breakfast watching the hungry deer eating from their troughs right by the fence and reluctantly left them to continue on our journey.

The next leg of the trip took us into the beautiful town of Amboise in the Loire Valley.

The town was particularly exciting for me as it was full of
cafés, pâtisseries and chocolatiers!

Their window displays lured me inside with chocolate
goodies too beautifully packaged to eat, bags of nougat
tied with ribbon and delicately painted marzipan fruits
on paper doilies.

A walk through the town, 500m past the Château d'Amboise lead us to Leonardo da Vinci’s house -Clos Lucé which is where he lived out the last years of his life. The gardens housed many life sized working models from Leonardo's own designs which we could sit in, operate, drive or propel. We even paddled our own da Vinci boat on the lake.

What a fabulous day out for boys who like
to explore how things work and girls who
like chocolate!

I hope you enjoyed reading this blog. Please leave me a comment by simply clicking on comments below.

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I'd love to hear from you.

France Passion!!!

2009-08-26T03:44:00.000-07:00

My next few blogs will be dedicated to highlighting how
welcoming these French people were, how delicious their
produce was and how it was possible for a family with
small children to have a very low budget holiday packed
full of fun and excitement.

Thanks to France Passion we have had a holiday with a
real difference. Faced with the thick handbook of places
offering their land for a free stop over, we were certainly
spoilt for choice. We rolled up in Rusty, our old Renault
camper, welcomed by lovely farmers and producers
onto their land for a night's stay.
In the space of two weeks we stayed in places so diverse
they ranged from a snail farm to a deer park.
Our arrival during the late afternoons were always filled
with intrigue and the evenings turned into an adventure
for the children that often outshone the daytime activities.
We certainly had a 'taste' (quite literally in many cases) of
a real rural farming community.

Taking the ferry from Poole to Cherbourg we plodded
on through the stunning overcrowded fields of sunflowers
and thick green ears of corn until we reached our chosen
destination for the night- the Bisons du Périgord at Mialet
on the N21 Routes from Limoges to Perigueux.
The large family were busy setting up a ‘cowboy bar’ and
were cutting wooden stakes to create canopies over the hay
bales in preparation for the coming weekend festival. We
were invited to camp up against the wire fence where the
bison 'greeted' us just before sunset. A visit to the tiny shop
provided supper…bison steak, which I prepared very
simply with salt and pepper, served with rice and topped
with a sauce made from my 'now faithful' Marrakesh 35
spice mix.
We heartedly tucked into our dinner, feeling slightly guilty
that we were devouring one of their brothers.
Once the boys clambered into the camper for the night
they gazed out through their little upstairs window thrilled
with their night time viewing entertainment. Some time
later the bison wandered off for their night to the
accompaniment of two little boys snoring.

The next day we visited to Grotte de Villars, just west of
Thiviers and very close to the bison farm. This was a
fantastic cave full of huge caverns and an amazing collection
of beautifully illuminated stalactites and stalagmites.
The boys were also thrilled to see real cave paintings
created 17000 years ago.

We visited Sarlat (Sarlat-la-Canéda) market on Saturday.
Sarlat is famed for one of the best markets in France and
we weren’t disappointed. Colourful marquees and parasols
flanked the beautiful medieval streets around the centre.

Even non food produce was worth a browse. There were
handmade wooden toys, unusual musical instruments,
panama hats, baskets and fluufy kittens in cardboard
boxes.
Périgord is renowned for its fois gras and walnuts and
there was also no shortage of stalls selling flat boxes of
walnut gateaux and displaying tins of goose pates stacked
up in shiny little pyramids. The vegetables, as always in
any French market, were vibrant and glossy, and we
could smell the sweet scent of freshly cut melons,
strawberries and warm crusty bagettes.

.

We stopped at ice cream kiosks and cafes to sample the
somewhat pricy milkshakes and cornets and we spent the
best part of the morning walking, photographing,
munching and slurping. If we hovered too slowly at a stall
we were beckoned over to try a slither of saucisson or a
piece of juicy dripping melon. We weren't complaining!

What a treat too be entertained by the most animated
street musicians Les Brin’Chieux.

This energetic band of young musicians with dreadlocks
and bare feet, performed fabulous French folk songs .
The sound made by the girl playing a boom box made of a
big thick string attached to a bucket really appealed to our
deaf five year old.
We bought their CD and played ‘Lady Marlene’ at full
volume weaving our way through small country lanes
bordered with the now heavy headed sunflowers.
Now that’s what we call immersing yourself in the
heart of the country!

We picniced at the banks of the Dordogne river near Vitrac.
A spectacular spot with a safe and shallow beach of smooth
stones overlooking dramatic cliff faces. The crystal clear
warm water provided the boys with great fishing
opportunities and very soon they were catching an
abundance of tiny gobies with their big string nets.

We ate our chicken which we had bought piping hot fresh
from the rotiserie in the market at Sarlat accompanied by
huge tomatoes and jagged lettuce, followed by a fabulous
fresh fruit salad of melon, strawberries and apricots.

After a relaxing afternoon’s swim, we headed for the
France Passion site of Canoe Auberge rurale du Port
d’Enveaux in Saint Vincent de Cosse for the night. The site
was stunning. We parked up in the shade of the trees next
to a beautiful private beach. The family ran a kayak business,
little shop and restaurant. We were welcome to stay for as
long as we wished and decided to spend two days and
nights to take advantage of it’s facilities and beautiful location.
Well of course we were going to do kayaking!!
Two boys, water and boats….it kind of goes without saying!

The following morning we were transported by old mini-
bus to Carsac with the aim of paddling the 14km down
stream back to camp. Families could choose one, two or
four berth Kayaks and could have as much time as they
wanted to paddle back to camp.
The scenery was breathtaking and the Dordogne was clear
and wide, with the most amazing fairytale castles hugging
each bend in the river. The water was rich with wildlife;
dragonflies, kingfishers, ducks and herons and of course fish.
The boys were disappointed, however, in the lack of nibbles
on their slither of salami which they dragged from the back
of the boat on a pice of string.
We slowly paddled past Vitrac, Domme, Cenac, La Roque
Gageac and Beynac, stopping off at little deserted beaches
every so often for snacks from our pre-stocked larder…
namely the barrel in the boat.
We waved at the tourists sitting on the beautiful authentic
Gabarre boats which idled past; their tour guide giving a
running commentry to the passengers.
A ‘floating photographer’ cleverly perched on a raft took
our picture as we paddled past and we conveniently collected
the image from the beach next to him. As we climbed out of the kayak, our image could be seen on a big screen and was already burnt to disk for us to buy.
The beauty of modern technology!

Later in the day we visited the village of Beynac-et-Cazenac
and and La Roque Gageac to sample their crepes and buy
new jelly shoes to replace the ones which had been washed
downstream the day before. The latter village was charming
although with not much in the way of shops. However, we
climbed the steep steps up into entrance to the troglodyte
castle and were rewarded with stunning panoramic views
of the river.

We stayed the next few nights at two farms which produced
walnuts.

The Domme La Ferme de Turnac, which also produces Fois
Gras, had barns and fields full of adorable fluffy goslings.
We found the farm of Monobre in Sainte- Mondane tucked
away in a small village at the end of a sweeping avenue of trees.

The family produced walnuts and the lovely owner apologised
profusely for her lack of goods saying that she was just a
small scale farmer. She did not need to apologise as her shop,
although modestly stocked, had bags of the fattest walnuts
we had ever seen. She took her hammer and demonstrated
to the boys how to crack the shell and sample the nut. She
told them that walnuts would make them run fast. So without
hesitation they devoured the walnut and ran round her garden
shouting that 'it was true!' and they could run faster than
they had ever run before.
They came back desperate for more walnuts!

We bought a bottle of fine walnut oil for ourselves…hoping
it would give us some energy, needed for entertaining two
small boys. It tasted delicious – very woody and warming.
We parked for the night in the shade of the walnut trees
which were heavy with fat green walnuts. Our pitch was
guarded by a life-size papier-mache figure whom we fondly
named Mr. Walnut. We then tucked into our duck salad,
drizzled with our newly discovered walnut oil. Delicious!

*****************************************

Do come back soon to The Chocolate Rucksack to
read more about our travels with France Passion,
or simply subscribe to the site for automatic updates.

Recipes
French Perigordine walnut cake
Gordon Ramsay's warm goats cheese salad
24 Duck recipes from channel 4
Skye Gyngell's -porcini, parmesan and celery salad with walnut oil

Books

France Passion

Rough guide to Dordogne

Dordogne and Perigord

Dordogne Mitchelin map

Dordogne DK Eyewitness guide

Films

Chocolat

The Messenger

D'Artagnan 's daughter

Young, beautiful and screwed up.

HAPPY TRAVELLING! HAPPY EATING!

Please leave a comment if you wish. I would love to hear from you!

Lavender

2009-06-10T06:55:00.000-07:00

Lavender lavender everywhere but not a drop to drink!!
Or was there?

Journeying along the Lavender road from Riez to Forcalquier
in the oppressive heat of the South of France, Rusty our
very old but faithful little camper was screeching
desperately for a new drive shaft. We were on desolate
roads and could only chug onwards promising her some
TLC when and where we could find some!
In the back, two tired and sticky children were getting
restless with the game of ‘who would be first to see a purple
field.’ A difficult task for boys who had no vision as to what
a lavender plant actually looked like, coupled with acute
boredom.

Suddenly there it was…purple…
Parking up, Tom rushed to pick stalks to stick into his
holiday scrapbook. The lavender not only looked stunning
but there was a heady, almost sickly aroma in the
air and….. it also made a noise!
Each mound of lavender was infested by hundreds of bees
and crickets and Tom, the intrepid David Attenborough,
was in his element!

Now in the ‘deepest, darkest’ lavender country, the typical
scenes were unfolding. Fields of plump, striped bushes
disappeared into the distance. Old, tumbling, grey stone
bories sat smugly amongst the flowers, adding even more
charm to an already 'picture perfect' postcard scene.

We journeyed on to Sault where the road became dryer,
steeper and windier with every turn of Rusty’s grating wheels.
We arrived a little later than we had planned and searched
desperately for somewhere to park up for the night. Brand
spanking new, gleaming white camper vans were sandwiched
into every available piece of terra firma. Finally, Rusty
squeezed her red, old and extremely dusty little self into the
last space of the evening and was sneered at with utter
contempt from our whiter than white neighbours. Their
colossal vehicles seemed to house petite retired couples
accompanied by small fluffy lapdogs.
Their faces were painted with expressions of sheer horror
when our two raucous boys emerged or rather exploded
from our tiny van complete with scooters, swing ball and
plastic boules.

Exploring the town was a little disappointing. We had no
intentions of buying lavender bags made from typically
garish Provencal
fabric, hideously painted chirping ceramic cicadas or soaps
of every possible colour packaged in corrugated cardboard.
The view, however was the icing on the proverbial cake. It
was stunning. Fields upon fields of lavender disppeared into
the distance over the Valensole plateau.

Up early, as usual, thanks to small children’s unfathomable
need to rise at the crack of dawn.
We walked along the road towards the charmingly old
fashioned lavender festival, where everyone and his cow
seemed to congregate.

The festival was opened by a ‘Grande’ procession. Red
faced ladies, donning lace edged bonnets, hitched up their
enormous petticoats and squeezed their voluptuous bottoms
onto the saddles of their old bikes. They pushed away in
unison with great gusto accompanied by shrill laughter.
Adolescent boys were next, clad in plus fours and waistcoats.
They were more self conscious as they heavily cycled off
into the woodland on their wooden contraptions.

Behind them thudded the biggest bulls that I had ever
seen pulling heavy slow carts overflowing with lavender.
A couple of small girls held the reins of their horse as they
sat on their leather seats at the front of a rickety wooden
waggon. Their woollen shawls were casually flung over
their delicate shoulders and their hair bespecked with
prickly lavender stalks, as if straight from the set of Little
House on the Prairie.

After devouring the biggest crepes yet seen, our two boys
set off eagerly to the soap making demonstration, sugar and
Nuttella still encrusted on their lips. They thrust their hands
into the bag of soap chippings to do what boys love to do best
…make a squelchy mess. Squeezing the wet soap flakes into
shape was sheer bliss before adding a handful of dried lavender
and finally a rough little piece of rope from which it could hang.
There were carts of lavender, parked at every corner.
Bunches were pulled out and spilled as people greedily
grabbed handfuls and roughly arranged them into
manageable bundles to take home.

At the end of the day, walking back along the hot streets,
our own arms full of bunches of dried lavender, we stopped
for frites at a nearby bustling café. This turned out to be
part of a bottling factory. Inside the store, little glass bottles
were lined up in a spectrum of gloriously outrageous colours.
There were bottles of fuchsia pink candy floss syrup,
gregarious green of apple and of course the shocking
purple of lavender syrup.

We now added a crate of bottled syrups to our already
laden arms and before heading back to the van, took a
sneaky peek into the bottling factory next door. Here the
gorgeously stubby virgin bottles sat on stationary conveyor
belts, some with their tiny ceramic stoppers flopped open
as if gagging for some coloured syrup.

Incidentally, the syrup, dare I say it, was surprisingly tasty
and drizzled over ice cream whilst perched on Rusty’s back
step was a blissful end to a hot day spent slap bang amongst
the Lavender.
Rusty’s already untidy interior was now carpeted with a
mass of crunchy lavender heads and the boy’s extremely
unattractive congealed globs of soap swung from our tiny
kitchen sink. Perhaps we should have invited our neighbours
in to share our pudding with us.
Maybe next year!

Buttons and Buckles
(Useful bits and bobs of information about lavender).

Recipes
Cooking with lavender
Lavender creme brulee
Lavender, orange and almond cake
Lavender muffins
Strawberry and lavender sorbet
Lavender shortbread
Honey and lavender ice cream
Lavender rice pudding
Lavender and honey lamb

Health and Beauty
Information about lavender oil
Health benefits
Neal's Yard Remedies
Jo Malone
Crabtree and Evelyn

Lavender farms
Isle of Wight Lavender Farm
Snowshill lavender
Long Barn
Yorkshire Lavender
The Lavender Fields
Jersey Lavender
Norfolk Lavender
Ornbaun Gibson Ranch

Books
Lavender
Creative ideas
Projects
The Lavender Cookbook
How to grow lavender
Growing and using lavender
Easy recipes for remedies
The lavender garden
Growers guide

Travel guides
Rough guide
Undiscovered France
Lonely Planet
DK

Lavender visits in Provence
Perfumerie in Grasse
Abbaye de Senanque
Valensole Plateau
musee de la lavande

Films
Ladies in Lavender
The Lavender Hill mob

Happy travelling! Happy eating!

2009-06-10T06:18:00.000-07:00

Why the chocolate rucksack?

2009-04-21T03:10:00.000-07:00

Why the chocolate rucksack?......well....I love travelling and exploring and I LOVE chocolate!

I could just imagine the best way to carry all the chocolate I would like to take on a journey would be to have a rucksack made of the stuff!!!

Marrakesh

2009-03-13T11:15:00.000-07:00

Last year hubby James battled heroically with Cancer.
Thankfully in September he got to remission, something
which we had all hoped and prayed for!
It certainly changed both of our outlooks on life and the
motto Carpe Diem rings very true for us.
We celebrated our own Carpe Diem day on 1st January
this year (exactly one year after diagnoses) and raised a
glass to life!
The ordeal of the last year had exhausted us all, emotionally
and physically, particularly James of course. At the end of
the year, a much appreciated and generous gift came in
the form of a trip to Marrakesh.

Our beloved Africa (Will tell you more in future postings)
was a short plane journey away and we were tickled to
think we were heading there for a long weekend of
African sunshine!
Children safely delivered to my parents. We had a whole
four days of 'us' time. The main aim was to relax!! No chance!
We tend to be budget travellers and usually 'rough it'.
However, our hotel in Marrakesh was incredibly luxurious.
A suite no less!

It was the MOST amazingly beautiful building (inside)
and was reached by battered taxi and a hair raising drive
through the streets. The cool interior of Dar Doukkala was
refreshing. Mosaic tiles, carved doorways, a little ornate
bird cage hung in the courtyard, a fountain tinkling with
water, filling the air with highly perfumed flower petals.
We had the place to ourselves (not another tourist in sight)
and we were beginning to feel guilty....
was all this really just for us?
There were so many rooms in our suite-we were totally
spoilt; a reading room, a lounge, a breakfast room, a room
with a fireplace, a huge personal terrace, a balcony, a
swimming pool and bathroom with the most amazing shaped
bath. Ornate carved ceilings and more places for two people
to sit and relax than one could imagine. And what's more,
after stepping out of the rooms and onto a huge personal
terrace overlooking the pool, downstairs you have the choice
of more and more stunning rooms to lounge in.
Now wait for it.....the hammam. Now we are talking!
Oh my goodness, what a place, steam steam and more steam.
Wow!

However...us being us, we were up and away....off exploring...
no time to waste. Out into the streets and following our
noses to see where they took us.

Venturing out into the dusty souks was an unforgettable
experience. Noisy cart wheels and shouting mingled with
the sound of clattering pans. Chickens hung by their
scraggy necks in dingy shop fronts and little hot tagines
(tajines) were steaming with lunchtime food. The blare
of horns was constant as scooters perilously raced through
the streets. The riders, amazingly always negotiated
the gaps between pedestrians and donkeys down
the narrow alleyways.

My mission, initially, was to locate the spice quarter.
So we made our way through the dusty streets
to Rahba Kedima- The Spice Square; the air heavy with
wood smoke and spice. We discovered spice stalls
down every side street and in numerous tiny kiosk sized
shops. Old, fat oil drums, brim full of colour, sat side
by side at the front of the shops. Inside, shelves were
piled high with glass jars of coloured powders and sealed
with tiny cork lids.

There were mixed spices of cardamon, cumin, and cinnamon,
the beautiful shapes of star anise and root ginger and the
vibrant colours of saffron, pap rika and turmeric.
Spices and herbs were laid out in the African sun, piled high
in small pillars and spilling out of rough sacks onto the dust.

One fantastic morning was spent in the village of Tnine-
L’Ourika, 21 miles South out of Marrakesh on the Ourika
Road. We hired an old, slow taxi for the day.
We were then free to wander and soak in the more remote
side of market life. Here, the heads of slaughtered animals
lay in the streets, blood washing down the road in
rivulets. The villagers sat aimlessly in the shade, amidst
their produce eating spiced meats and flat breads. The
whole village was bereft of tourists and more noticeably,
of women.
The produce was sold by the locals straight off the back of
the donkeys who were conveniently ‘parked’ in the shade
of the nearby trees.
There were rows of little restaurants where one could
choose to eat dried fish on skewers, peppered
with flies, a goat's head from a neatly arranged pile
or intestine from the globby mounds of unidentifiable type
of offal....
I wasn't hungry all of a sudden!
Laid out in rows on white table cloths were little chipped
enamel tea pots, filled with piping hot, fresh mint tea.
Delightful!

On the way back to the city, we visited the saffron farm at
Jardin bio-aromatique de L'ourika.
The girls giggled embarrassingly upon our arrival and flirted
(with their occasionally raised eyes) ....with James.
They plucked the stems from each purple crocus flower.
Laborious work. 140 flowers are needed to produce 1g of
saffron!!

After a fantastic lunch of Lamb tagine and Cous Cous,
followed by thick yoghurt drizzled with honey in adorable
hand painted pots, we ventured back into Marrakesh.
The old city which nestles inside the dusky pink walls is
known as the Medina. Here lies numerous different districts
or Souks.
Each Souk offered us a different experience of sounds and
colours.

There were dark and narrow shops selling leather shoes –
the Souk des Babouches. Each kiosk was a myriad of
coloured and highly patterned 'pointy-toed' shoes, laid out
like a pick and mix counter in a sweet shop. There were
souks for metal workers, wood turners and jewellers....
so many people, so many talents.

.

The Souk des Teinturiers was a fascinating little section of
dyers and their beautiful silks. The men here rushed towards
us, eager to demonstrate the process of dyeing, hungry at
the prospect of a scarf being purchased from their shop.
But just stopping to look skywards to admire the vivid
freshly dyed fabrics against the blue was enough of a treat
for us. In the Souk Sebbaghine, natural wool was piled in
dingy corners, pale and colourless. Yet high above, suspended
like spiders' webs between each alley way were hanks of
dyed wool drying in the sun. We were lucky enough to climb
above the walls to see the washing lines of fabric hanging
alongside the ugly satellite dishes and brick chimneys.
Today was a yellow and blue day. Tomorrow would be
different colours.

Peering into the little alcoves we could see the workers
covered in dye. Their arms plunged in and out of giant
cauldrons of colour. Glass jars were displayed on shelves
outside the shops. A riot of natural vivid colours,
rich cobalt blue, bright red from the poppy flower,
iridescent green of crushed beetles and the soft
pink of crushed sea shells.

After journeying on foot to the Potter's Souk to buy my
clay tagine, for a mere 50p, we finally headed for the
Jemaa el Fna, the central square. As the sun was setting,
the square was waking up. There was noise, colour and
bustle eveywhere.
There were vendors selling freshly squeezed orange juice
and dried fruit from their wooden carts. Water
sellers paced up and down the square, clad in bright red
wool coats adorned with bells and feathers. They poured
water for customers from silver jugs which hung from their
waists. Fortune tellers, snake charmers, drummers and
story tellers provided the entertainment.

There were numerous smoky little kitchens, with waiters

running out into the crowds whistling and beckoning people

onto their patch. Their tables were overflowing with

colourful arrangements of meats and salads, snails and goats heads.

The restaurants nestled side by side, fighting with each other

for elbow room. Soaking up the noises and smells of the warm

evening, we ate our calamari, skewered chicken, thick,

sticky cake and drank exhilarating ginger tea . What a

perfect end to our potted tour of Marrakesh.

We will be back!

Buttons and Buckles
(Useful bits and bobs of information that you may need to

help plan your trip to Marrakesh).

Moroccan recipes
Mediterranean cous cous salad
Cinnamon Pancakes
Mint tea
Nigella Lawson's Moroccan Lamb
Jamie Oliver's Moroccan Lamb Stew
Moroccan Grilled Chicken
Moroccan Meatballs
Moroccan braised rabbit
Cinnamon, orange and honey yoghurt
Moroccan baby carrot salad

Sites and blogs
My Marrakesh
Travel bites
Nordljus
Wine writer
Ciezeldai
Food on the brain
Shikishi
Marrakesh Exanthi
Moroccan design
Mr and Mrs Smith
Travel Marrakech
Here or there
Rough guides

Books
A selection of Travel books
DK guide
Every man Map Guide
Lonely planet
Michelin map
A Year in Marrakesh-Peter Mayle
Moroccan Cuisine
Moroccan style
Mosaic project book
Cafe Moroco
Book of spices
Tagine

Films
The kite runner
Hideous Kinky
Our man in Marrakesh
Fury in Marrakesh

Happy travelling! Happy eating!