Hanadi' Restaurant in Tangiers, Morrocco

This was probably the highlight of trip/tour to Tangiers, Morocco in Africa.  It was the ONLY place where we weren't bothered by beggars and panhandlers.  It was clean and I think probably specifically for the tourists...how close this was to the "real" Tangiers I don't know.  The restaurant is Hanadi'.  The music was fun and spirited.  Click to enlarge the photo and notice the musician on the far right.

That's hubby on the left looking at the menu.  We were all crowded into a designated spot by our not friendly or well liked tour guide, Pedro from Julia Tours.  Thus the name tag on hubby. I will blog in detail later about them and why you should NOT take their tour.

The people on our tour friendly, but we all mumbled about the tour itself.  It was a learning tour, it was nothing but sales, sales, sales.  Most of which became very uncomfortable.  The restaurant however fake it might have been was fun!  The decor full of detail and interesting and very colorful.  The meal was good, and the service was good.

Looking towards the ceiling.

Notice again the musician on the far right.  He became my boyfriend during lunch.  Seriously he never took his eyes on me.  Hubby and our travel companion Jane noticed it too.  He was cute wonderful smile, but .....hey I'm just hear for lunch and clean bathroom break.  By the way, the ONLY bathroom break in a 13 hour tour from Marbella Beach via tour bus without a bathroom to immigration to high speed ferry to Tangiers and back.

Interesting that they served beer and wine.  We felt drinking it was probably safer as it was opened at our table and we didn't have to worry about bad water from the tap.

The meal was Harira (a moroccan soup), chicken cou-cous, pinchos morunos, hot mint tea, and chaparquila pastry.

Lunch was included in our tour fee, but not the drinks.  The tea was hot tea in a glass which was hard to even hold due to the heat; but I did manage to taste it as least.  I think it was to accompany our desert, but just as many of us were served our desert our terrible tour guide decided it was time to march out of the restaurant?  He'd made an announcement about 5 minutes prior, so I made a bee-line to the bathroom, not wanting to get left...cause he really never checked to see if we had everyone which was a bit un-comfortable.

It was a warm day there in Tangiers, I got some sun on the noise if you notice.  The tables are quite low, so you sit well above the table level which wasn't very comfortable but, manageable.  Hubby and I with our stickers.  One must not loose that important sticker, Pedro was very nasty about that.

As I said very spirited music.

If you find yourself in Tangiers and want a cool, clean place for lunch...this is the place.

There official post card which my friend Jane picked up on our way out of the restaurant.

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Gaudi's Güell Park in Barcelona, Spain

 WOW, even on a cloudy morning, what a view.  We're high up on the hill at Güell Park in Barcelona, Spain.  You can see how densely populated the city is.  Güell Park named for Euseb Güell, a friend a benefactor of Antoni Gaudi'.  In early 1900 there were a half million people in Barcelona and growing.  The world's fair was held there in 1888 which showed the world what a metropolis it was.  Antoni Gaudi' a visionary who believed art should model nature, and in nature there are no straight lines.......nature flows.  The two men were friends and people who wanted to solve a problem.

 The problem, a fast growing Barcelona with noise, pollution and sanitation problems that caused heath problems.  Barcelona was a city of art, of modern new ideas.  They decided to build a housing development.  Well, perhaps the term housing development isn't quite right.  They wanted to build a planned community with 60 triangle shape plots, space for community to gather.  A space that couldn't be more then 1/6th development for the wealthy folks in Barcelona.  Gaudi' the talent and Güell the money behind it all.

 So up on a hill away from the hustle and bustle that was Barcelona the development started.  Lots of tile work, walking paths, gardens, trees, planned viaducts, water collections systems...truly a marvel for it's time.  However,

 Only 1 lot sold and in 1914 Güell discontinued work on the project.  After his death, his family offered the vast lands to the city.

 In 1922 the city acquired the beautiful space and 4 years later opened it as a public park.  Even on an overcast day you can see how brilliant the colors are, how interesting the art work, how unique the buildings are.

 Why didn't it sell?  Transportation.  Even the wealthy had no decent transportation to get from the city to the planned development and then to climb the hill.

 Our fabulous tour guide, Patrick Ducher, whom I've mentioned before, but am again living the link to the wonderful reviews......HERE, knew all the best spots to place Hubby and I for photo's that he took for us.  Thank you Patrick.  Patrick and his group have a superb rating with travel advisor, check it out HERE

 All the pictures you see taken from the top are up these steps, where a large open space exited for parades, festivals and community to gather.  Further up the hillsides was the area were the houses were to be located.

 Mosaics with every possible color of the rainbow.

 One such house, were Gaudi' lived until his death.

 Purposeful art, incorporated into a bench.

Do put this on your list of must things to see when you visit Barcelona, and be sure and arrange a private tour, you'll learn so much more then trying to do this on your own...ask for Patrick, he's awesome!

**REMINDER, please leave the url to your actual blog post, NOT your google+ page, NOT your blogger profile/dashboard page. Use the name and url option, or leave a hyperlink. **After the close of April's A-Z, I plan to continue to write a post a day in the month of May using again the A-B-C's as my guide. My focus for the month of May will be Spain.