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As part of my Cosmos tour in January 2003, I had five days to explore some of Morocco.

We visited Rabat, Casablanca, Marrakesh, the Ourika Valley, Fez and finished in Ceuta.

Crowds of people were coming off the ferry from Morocco. The New Year holiday was over and many people of Moroccan nationality seemed to be returning to their homes in Europe. As it was winter though, not so many of us boarded the ferry south.

I loved the ferry trip in the Mediterranean. For a large part of the trip we were able to see two coasts at once. On one side was Europe and on the other side was Africa. We passed Tarifa, where some windsurf, and others drown in a desperate attempt to get to Europe.

When we arrived at the port of Tangiers, I had reason to be glad I was part of a tour, as our way was quickly smoothed past an army of local touts. We met Khalid, our Moroccan national guide for our time in Morocco. As we travelled down the Atlantic coast to Rabat, Khalid began acquainting us with some facts about the country. I knew so little about Morocco, and I was looking forward to learning much more. Khalid explained that about half of the Moroccan population was of Berber origin, and tended to live in the rural areas like mountains and deserts, and the other half was of Arabic origin. Of these, about half had come to Morocco when the Moors and Jews were expelled from Spain by Queen Isabella. We were soon to see many links between Moorish Spain and Morocco.

One of my first surprises about Morocco was how green it was. It was a particularly wet winter, of great benefit to the farmers. We travelled through an area of intensive agriculture as we moved south, with citrus, sugar cane, and strawberries (for Europe) growing in abundance.

We began our tour of Rabat with a visit to the Royal Palace and the mosque, set in a large enclosure with many gardens. We were told that in Morocco the mosques have one square minaret and we soon saw many examples of this. The Palace itself is quite a modern building but it has a beautiful façade with tiled patterns, stone tracery and Arabic inscriptions. Guards, in bright red uniforms, stand at its entrance.

We next visited the Mausoleum of Mohammed V, which we were allowed to respectfully enter. It was beautifully decorated with tiles, and people prayed within at the tombs. Nearby was the "Unfinished Mosque" and the Tour Hassan, strongly resembling the square tower of the Giralda in Seville.

We finished our exploration of Rabat with a visit to the Kasbah. In this old quarter we saw the blue and white of Andalucia and we rested briefly in an Andalucian garden. Near the walls of the Kasbah there are archaeological diggings that may change understanding of the history of the town of Rabat.

As we viewed the river once again before leaving Rabat, we were told that Rabat used to be a centre of piracy from the seventeenth century, as refugees from Spain took their revenge. The peaceful scenes at the river today made it hard to imagine the intrigue of the past.

We drove on inland towards Marrakesh, through more beautiful countryside. In various places we saw sheep being carefully shepherded, and Khalid explained that soon it would be the Muslim feast of Eid Al Adha, when sheep would be sacrificed and food shared with family and the less fortunate.