Trips of a lifetime
At this stage of our lives, Mary Lou and I are looking for travel that is a bit different. We like exploring parts of the world rich in history, including the type of history we are not so familiar with. We like hearing languages we do not understand and eating food that we are not used to. We like visiting places that we have heard about and studied since we were kids. Two of our last trips, to Antarctica and then later Egypt fit the bill perfectly.
We currently find ourselves on another trip that fits the bill. Visiting the old historic seaports on the coast of Spain has opened our eyes to the early history of southern Europe we did not know so well. For me, our visit to Gibraltar was a checkoff for a longtime bucket list item.
Like most Americans, we thought of Humprey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman when we arrived in Casablanca. However, every bit of the famous movie was filmed in Hollywood. Rick’s Café exists, but was not built until 2004, 62 years after the movie’s premier. I certainly did not think of Casablanca as a city of 10 million people.
I visited my first mosque, the Hassan II Mosque, the largest in Morocco, with the largest minaret (tower) in the world. It is the only Mosque in Morocco that allows non-believers of Islam to enter the building, and I am glad they did. Only then would I have discovered that the magnificent chandeliers in the Musella (main prayer hall) were donated by Pope John Paul as a goodwill gesture from one religion to another. Over 30,000 worshipers can gather within the Musella, with many tens of thousands more gathered in the massive courtyard outside.
Malaga is an ancient port city founded by the Phoenicians some 3,000 years ago. Later they were conquered by the Moors, who ruled for some 700 years. This is when I learned that the Moors were Muslims who primarily controlled the Iberian Peninsula between the 7th and 15th centuries. The Ottomans were a Turkish dynasty, also Muslim, that separately controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia and North Africa.
The Moors had a distinct architecture that was largely destroyed when the Christians conquered southern Spain. Most of the mosques were destroyed and Christian churches were built in their place. Ironically, the last conquest of the Moors in Spain occurred in 1492, the same year Columbus discovered the Americas.
Some 90 miles inland, in the city of Grenada, a magnificent Moorish Palace remains, though with additions and changes made by the Christian conquerors. Alhambra is the most visited monument in Spain, with good reason. It is one of the best-preserved palaces of the historic Islamic world. While being one of the best examples of medieval Islamic architecture, it also has excellent examples of the Spanish Renaissance period.
Alhambra is a UNESCO World Heritage Sites, one of 49 such sites in Spain. In a private chapel renovated for Queen Isabella after the conquest of the Moors, the intricate carvings quoting the Quran were left intact. It was an unusual gesture that recognized the significance and beauty of the site. The gardens, palaces, and governmental buildings of the complex give a visitor a wonderful glimpse into the lives of the rulers of two different dynasties in the same location.
A final topic for this article would have to be Gibraltar and its famous Rock. I have seen pictures of this geological monument since my earliest days of perusing the World Book Encyclopedia. Seeing it in person was everything I had hoped for and more.
Gibraltar is just a tiny spot of land at the southern point of Spain that is curiously a British Overseas Territory. It is a unique and historic peninsula that is crowned by the iconic Rock of Gibraltar mountain. From the top you can see Africa across the narrow strait of Gibraltar. In the other direction, Spain spreads out just to the north.
You can walk across the only runway in Gibraltar to reach the border with Spain, surely a practical solution that would never be considered in the major airports of the world.
The top of the cathedral-like Rock towers 1,312 feet above the waves at its base, with much of it a shear-face of stark limestone. The roads are curving, narrow, and often without guardrails. However, catching the small bus is preferable to hiking to the top, which an unusual number of people attempt.
At the top, you are rewarded by incredible views in every direction, and to delight of almost everyone, a colony of Barbary macaques that live on its slopes. These delightful animals are the only wild monkeys in Europe. They roam free and loose all over the mountain.
An added benefit of making your way to the top is the opportunity to visit the tunnels built throughout the mountain and their extraordinary history as part of World War II. In addition to the natural caves that have been present for millennia, various boring companies from around the world made a virtual city grid within the mountain.
Housing for 16,000 soldiers and citizens, along with desalination plants, electrical generating plants, hospitals, anti-aircraft guns and ammunition, made the Rock a seemingly impregnable location at the strategic point where the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean come together in a strait less than nine miles wide at its narrowest point.
Combined with the fact that the strait also separates Africa and Europe, Gibraltar’s history is long, complicated and strategic, particularly with its role in World War II.
Today, we disembark the Silver Ray and fly to Amsterdam to join some of our children and grandchildren on a very different type of cruise. The Faulks will join us on a riverboat on the Rhine River. Back-to-back cruises in two very different parts of the world. Indeed, this is one of the trips of our lifetime.
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Dan Ponder can be reached at [email protected]