Kauffman Commentary

Keeping Track of Travel

Day in Essaouira

Outside the entrance to our hotel.

Our hotel is inside the Medina and this Medina is 18th century. It is not the spaghetti alleys of the other 12th and 16th century medinas. This one is layed out as a grid and much easier to get around. It opens at 10:00 and closes at sunset. The planning for this little city was designed by a French engineer named Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban.

Vauban known for his turrets.

Inside the Medina

Here it is much calmer and easier to walk. No motorcycles for the most part and few bicycles.

Breakfast at the hotel.

Front gate

Everything is fueled by propane.

More dogs here.

Grinding almonds for almond Nutella

Hamburger

Jewish quarter

Blue color for luck.

Woodworking is a specialty here.

Zaouia a shrine and mosque.

Where we purchased a painting. The name Mogador was the name of this town originally.

This is a fortress for the Medina. They were getting ready for some type of concert and had huge speakers playing “Hotel California”.

This Medina was the site for John Wick 3. Before they began filming they realized that there were too many cats, that they would get in the way of filming. So they created an agency to collect the cats and put them in an area temporarily until filming was finished. They all ate very well.

Tara had to go in the squat bathrooms.

Fishing

Fishing is big here, both small boats for locals and larger commercial boats.

If you select and buy fish, these guys will clean them for you.

View from where we ate lunch.

Mission Impossible

We went on a search for these handmade table clothes. We went through the Medina, but ended up outside in the local markets. This lady we ran into thought she knew where to find them and out of the goodness of her heart took us all over. She was just carrying her bucket and walking so fast that we could hardly keep up. We found one, but it wasn’t handmade, she just kept going. In the end we had to give up, but she was quite the lady.