Due to rough seas, the ferry from Gibraltar to Tangier was cancelled. Therefore, we had to walk back across the Spanish border to La Linea, take a 45 minute bus ride around the harbor to Algeciras where we were able to board a larger (but slower) ferry to Tangier.
View from our ferry at Algeciras. The weather was nice at the port, but windy and the sea was rough.
The weather worsened, although we did see a rainbow as we entered the Strait of Gibraltar.
Steph was not feeling well. We were able to get a good seat on the ferry, but the yellow thing in the picture is a trash can we moved over in case of an emergency. Instead of the normal 2 and a half hours, the trip took almost 4 hours. It was very nice to get off the boat. The ferry arrived at Tangier's new port, which is about 30km from the city; however,there is a free bus that we were able to board that dropped us a few hundred meters from the hotel. We have found in Morocco that there are some extremely nice, helpful people, such as those at the ferry port and our hotel. Unfortunately, there are a lot of obnoxious people hanging around the tourist areas in the city. As we exited the bus, there was a large group of men wanting to "help" unload our luggage, put our luggage in a taxi we didn't want, and take us to hotels in which we did not want to stay. We were able to avoid these and made it to the hotel. During our short hike to the hotel, we ran into three different "helpers" along the way that wanted to give us directions we did not need or sell us things we did not want. Fortunately, the nice people outnumber the obnoxious ones.
Our hotel, the Hotel Continental where persons such as Winston Churchill and Prince Albert have stayed. Yes, it's that old. The rooms could do with an updating, but the public areas of the hotel were very nice.
Inside the hotel.
A courtyard in the hotel.
Tables for breakfast.
View of the old port, where our ferry did not arrive, from the hotel.
The Grand Socco, which is a small plaza and fountain near the medina or souk, market.
Streets of Tangier.
An archway leading into the souk.
Into the souk. Most shops sell clothes, souveniers, household items, etc., in addition to the food markets.
The market had fresh chickens and bread.
Fruits and vegetables.
And a large fish market.
(You could also purchase the head of a goat but we didn't get a picture of that one.)
Our lunch, chicken tangine, was very good. It is very much like a chicken stew with spices.
There is an extremely large beach in Tangier.
With the obligatory beach soccer game.
The Grand Mosque near the Medina and our hotel.
View of Tangier from our window.
Also from our window one can hear the call to the Grand Mosque; 5 times per day.
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