Visiting Spain n Morocco

 Visiting Spain and Morocco!

By

Abida Rahmani

I was in Islamabad at the end of 2019 , that my friends living in Los Angeles, CA convinced me to join them for a trip to Spain. It had always been a great passion and desire to visit Spain and see the lost grandeur of almost 600  years Muslims rule in Spain:

After completing all the financial obligations we were supposed to leave on 25th March 2020 for Barcelona. 

Soon after the Covid-19 Pandemic ruled the world and Spain along with USA and rest of the world was badly affected. 

Finally after a wait of two years , curb and control over the pandemic with vaccines and other restrictions we were able to visit Spain. I was the only one that traveled from Toronto to Barcelona, rest of the group arrived from LAX. I was traveling through Aerlingus and had a connection through Dublin because it’s an Irish airline. 

After arrival at Barcelona there was no to receive me. Luckily has got the name of the hotel from our agent and tour operator Yazmin Ahmed. 

After changing the currency figured out that the language problem is quite apparent. However with the help of airport security guard, got the shuttle van to hotel for 20 euros. It was

hotel

Roger de lluria

28, 08010, 

Barcelona, spain

I reached there in the morning while rest of the group arrived in the evening!

After taking rest, had some food went around the block .

After the arrival of rest of the group went to a nearby restaurant for food.

Next day we started touring Barcelona with a guide in the morning!

Arrived at Barcelona:

Trip to Spain and Morocco 

Rabat , Casablanca,Madrid and back home!

We have to leave our hotel Dar Bensauda early in the morning at 6 am. Our breakfast was nicely arranged by hotel early in the morning. In the meantime we were quite acquainted with hotel’ friendly and courteous staff. 

After breakfast at our hotel, we met our guide and driver and set out to the city of Meknes, where together with our  guide saleem we explored the major highlights in about 3 hours. We start with admiring the grand entrance to the city and as well the most beautiful gates in the world - Bab Mansour.

Rabat was a 2-1/2 hour drive from Meknes. A vast  lush green landscaping , Olive trees and date palms could be seen on sides of the road.

Rabat, Morocco's capital, rests along the shores of the Bouregreg River and the Atlantic Ocean. It's known for landmarks that speak to its Islamic and French-colonial heritage, including the Kasbah of the Udayas. This Berber-era royal fort is surrounded by formal French-designed gardens and overlooks the ocean. The city's iconic Hassan Tower, a 12th-century minaret, soars above the ruins of a mosque. Here some Royal guards were standing on horses with whom we had pictures!

After Roaming around we arrived at our hotel to spend the night:

After early morning breakfast grabbing the luggage we rode our bus with guide and started for Casablanca!

Casablanca means white palace القصر ابیض

Tour of Casablanca
Welcome to Casablanca - Morocco's largest city and in fact one of the largest and most important hubs in entire Africa! 

We were supposed to go to shopping and Saleem warned us about pickpockets in the area to take care of our belongings! Everyone was  quite alert.On arrival at Casablanca we went to big white mosque besides Atlantic Ocean build by former ruler Hassan II of Morocco. It is the second largest functioning mosque in Africa and is the 7th largest in the world. Its minaret is the world's second tallest minaret at 210 metres. It was a magnificent mosque we went to see, designed by the French architect Michel Pinseau.

Unfortunately there were no arrangements for us to get inside not even allowed to use the washrooms. Therefore we just roamed around, took pictures, strolled down the shores of Atlantic and came back to the van. Most of the group people were eager to do shopping while I was the only one for sightseeing with no success. All got busy in shopping in the plaza, had some juice and ice cream . We were there for 1-1/2 hour before going to airport and take a flight to Madrid:However three persons were untraceable after deadline and it took another 1/2 hour to trace them. Finally when they return we took a sigh of relief and started our journey to airport. Just had a drive through and a glimpse of city that was all we did in Casablanca.

Saleem and driver bid farewell to us at the airport. As we were checking in,Yasmin Ahmed our tour operator and a co passenger Saba faced some problem with booking. Rest of our group left for Madrid while unaware about their fate.

It was utterly irresponsible of Yasmin that she didn’t contact us to give us guidelines about our night stay at Madrid and departure!

After arrival we ran around the airport to do Covid testing for tomorrow morning departure and find some place to have a night stay. There was no news of Yazmin.Finally Zarina was successful to get the hotel name through her daughter contacting Yazmin somehow. We hired Taxis arrived at hotel by midnight while half of the group preferred to stay at the airport. Dead tired and exhausted, slept for a couple of hours and early morning at six we again hired taxis and went for Covid testing at a nearby clinic.The clinic charged us 70 euros per person.

After getting our reports again hired taxis and went back to hotel. My flight was two hours earlier than rest of the group. Hurriedly did my breakfast, grabbed my luggage, called taxi and rushed to the airport ( Yasmin Ahmed still owes  me 40 euros because she had to reimburse me).

I was dropped at terminal two the wrong terminal. The counter was at terminal four.luckily got a ready to go shuttle bus and was helped with luggage by some nice boys.After checking in by skipping the long lines through request had to go through train to gate S. 

The Aerlingus flight was at time. Totally exhausted slept most of the time up to Dublin. From Dublin to Toronto had a meal service luckily.

After arrival at Toronto, standing till the last moment at conveyor built, my luggage didn’t arrive. Looked at the tags , it was booked upto Dublin.At checking in I told the agent that my destination is Toronto and she affirmed it.

Filed the complaint with Aer Lingus agent there. The luggage finally arrived after a week.