Today in Tangier Morocco, we boarded the Hop-on Hop-Off bus for a tour of the city.

Our view from beside the ship.

The port shuttle took us to the car park of the Intercontinental Hotel from where we could cross the road and catch the red bus. The juxtaposition of the old wall and the flash hotel was typical of what we saw here.

We were impressed with the skill of our driver who manoeuvred the bus through some extremely narrow streets and around tight corners.

We drove by a long, narrow cemetery which was filled with grasses and flowers.

We weren’t sure where to hop off and we chose the city centre which turned out to be a mistake. It was a large new shopping centre with no customers, bored shop assistants and only American chain restaurants such as Burger King and Pizza Hut. By this stage, we were ready for coffee but we wanted a legitimate Moroccan coffee so we left here and caught a taxi back to the Souq that the bus had taken us through.

As well as fresh fruit and vegetables the souq contained many long narrow aisles filled with fake handbags, shoes, t-shirts etc. There must have been thousands of bags! Who would buy them all?

We wandered around for a while, still searching for our hit of caffeine and then walked down the steep hill to the waterfront where we found many cafés and were able to get our coffee. It was very strong, delicious and cost €1 each. The currency here is the dirham which is worth US$0.10.

We then wandered back to the shuttle and back to the ship for lunch and our afternoon rest.