Mediterranean 2017 - part twenty-two

A Funchal, Madeira, port cam captures Veendam before she crosses the Atlantic. Thanks to Richard, my friend in Australia, for the shot.

Since last here, a statue of Ronaldo has appeared on the waterfront. Knowing little about European football, can’t say he ranks high on the list of those I’d like to meet, but I’m doubtless in a minority, at least here where he was born.

I enjoy Funchal. At a sidewalk cafe I know, a final European coffee and then a stroll on dry land, rather than the ship’s rolling deck. This is a wonderful place for photography.

Marilyn on a fairground ride.

Street art. 

At the 1940 market - another of those ponderous deco-ish buildings from the era of Portuguese fascism  - there are, however, impressive tiles.

The young vendor with a cigarette …

… and woman looking at birds always make me smile.

Inside, I pass a few minutes watching a fishmonger expertly prepare his stock.

Outside, a card game that’s been here every time I’ve visited. 

Back on board, I go to the stern. There’s Norwegian Spirit, about to depart for Malaga, Spain, where we were so many weeks ago. In the time since, we have been to very near the eastern end of the Mediterranean and now back out into the Atlantic.

At the dockside, people look at Veendam. Some almost seem to have that schoolboy longing I remember from my Vancouver childhood. I can so clearly recall watching ships preparing to cast off and desperately wanting to be on them. Now, I am old and it’s time for a shower.

Before dinner, a last look at Funchal. 

By the time dessert and coffee are served, we’re on our way and city lights far in the distance. Nine days until we reach the States.

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Link to previous post on Funchal:

http://trainsandboatsandplanesandtheoddbus.blogspot.ca/2015/12/albania-revisited-and-other-places-part_10.html

Mediterranean 2017 - part twenty-one

I understand why some Westerners are wary of wandering in Casablanca’s Médina on their own, even in broad daylight. It’s just the way it is now - even the most liberal can’t avoid a near constant diet of negative stories about Islam and Moslem countries. That said, if there’s a safe Moslem nation, it’s Morocco and I’ve never had problems. 

I plunge into the Médina, knowing full well I’ll get lost, but have a whole day to make my way out. And, as before, I find colour, chaos, delightful people.

Passerby and the king, Mohammed VI.

A cyclist wants to pose.

Proud owner brings out one of his birds (no idea what the birds are) to pose, too.

Even now, many residents, as does this lady, depend on communal taps.

Emerging near the Médina's far end, a pharmacy reassures me in French that I’m more or less on route.

I’ve come to the mosque named for the current king’s father, Hassan II. This link takes you to a previous post showing something of the interior:

http://trainsandboatsandplanesandtheoddbus.blogspot.ca/2014/12/mediterranean-2014-part-thirteen.html

After passing a few minutes watching swimmers below the mosque …

… I return to the Médina.

Then, rounding a corner …

… I come across a carefully tended, idiosyncratic delight in the Médina's heart. Had I set out to find it, never in a million years would I have got there on my own.

Youssef Halabi pokes his head from a door and is happy to pose with his ‘garden’. And he’s anxious to show something else.

On one wall is Youssef’s own painting of the Hassan II Mosque. 

Youssef puts on a serious face, his hand indicating ‘there is no god but God’. 

With wishes for continued safe travels, Youssef points me in the right direction. In minutes I’ve emerged from the ancient maze and am back in the bustle of 21st Century Casablanca.

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Link to previous post on Casablanca:

 http://trainsandboatsandplanesandtheoddbus.blogspot.ca/2015/12/albania-revisited-and-other-places-part_8.html

Mediterranean 2017 - part twenty

I often seem to be on my own in the most marvellous places. 

Take the Museo Iberoamericano del Títere - puppet museum - in Cadiz, Spain, on a Sunday morning. There’s no one else, bar a pleasant lady at the front desk, who says, “Es gratis.” This wonderful museum with puppets from all over the world is free.

Next time you’re in Cadiz, go. This place deserves support.

Across the road, it’s the same. 

The Museo taller Litográfico - lithography and typography museum - is also empty and free, too.

The current main exhibition - a history of the city’s newspaper - has me back in the New Brunswick paper where, still in my teens, I first tasted real journalism.

That even looks like the sit-up-and-beg typewriter on which I turned out my florid prose. Fortunately, a rather frightening editor spent an inordinate amount of time making it readable.

Long before computers, these are the tools we used - well, people more proficient than me used  - to lay out the paper. 

And here is much the same Linotype machine - developed in the 1880s - which produced the hot metal type, which in turn printed my much edited first stories. The clank of the presses, smell of the ink, the huge rolls of newsprint and utter joy of holding a real newspaper with my - my! - story … admittedly not on page one, but, yes, there it was just before the want ads and obituaries.

Why does a town a thirtieth Toronto’s size, depending on the math, have such marvellous, free public museums and Toronto can’t even offer a museum of the city itself?

To be fair, Toronto has superb art galleries and museums of international stature - the latest is the stunning Aga Khan Museum. And there are countless small and worthwhile exhibition spaces. However, most, even if ‘public’, charge admission. And again, Toronto - third or fourth largest city in the United States and Canada - does not have a museum devoted to the city, although one may be on city council’s grudging distant horizon.