Thunersee and Brienzersee in Bernese Oberland

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From time to time, we will post here a collection of links to our recent posts that are related to a theme, like a trip or a place, so you can catch up with our adventures. Thank you for your support !

These four posts cover a short trip to Spiez where we used as a base to explore two beautiful lakes, Thunersee and Brienzersee in Bernese Oberland, Switzerland.

Travel in Post-pandemic Switzerland, Spiez

Driving around Lake Thun in Switzerland

Iseltwald, a K-drama filming location in Switzerland

Sigriswil Panorama Bridge, Switzerland

Sunrise at Mount Pilatus, part 2

Continuing with our story about mountains and …

We woke up at six something and hurried out of the hotel to see the sunrise. Thankfully, the fog had dissipated overnight and the sky above us was clear.

Since Hotel Bellevue was already at the top, it was technically unnecessary to climb higher to see sunrise. But we followed the hotel’s suggestion to get atop of Esel (Donkey) at 2,118 m [6,949 ft] – the second highest point of the entire Pilatus range, just east of our hotel.

It took us about 15 minutes to reach the peak of Esel – we practically ran up the steps as we were a bit worried about missing the moment when the sun appears above the horizon.

Gasping for air which had no moisture at that altitude, we were dying of thirst by the time we reached the top. There were about 10-15 people at the Esel summit which was walled-in and crowned by an iron triangulation cross. The crowd’s sense of anticipation was at a level usually met at a concert performance, and yet sunrise is a daily thing that we all take it for granted.

At 6:56 am, an orange disc emerged from the horizon and rose above the distant mountain ranges. Dawn !

The peaks of the surrounding mountains were first to reflect the warm glow. The view of Lake Lucerne and the city of Lucerne below, visible between gaps in the clouds was spectacular, as was the view southward to the Alps.

There is no word to describe the beauty of the moment and the uplifting of spirit as the rays lit up our faces and the vast expanse above and around us.

Rise and shine. As the sun crept up from the horizon, long sharp shadows were cast across the two hotels and the terrace. We hung around to take pictures and videos along with a small crowd of now excited and satisfied spectators.

On our way down from Esel, we saw a wild mountain goat, also known as an ibex, the kind that is famed for perching on cliffs and jumping off mountainside. It caught us by surprise.

This animal was a baby as its horns were small. In adults, the horns are huge, curved and menacing. Check the photos on the internet. The species was seriously endangered in the Alps until the 1820’s when ibex hunting was banned by the dukes of Savoy in Grand Paradiso (a national park in the Italian Alps). Now they are not so rare in these parts.

Apart from the aerial cable car that we used, there is a second form of transport to get up to Pilatus-Kulm – the cogwheel train. This feat of engineering was commissioned in 1889, having a gradient of up to 48 percent that is the steepest cogwheel railway in the world. From Alpnachstad, it takes about 30 minutes travel time.

Track for cogwheel railway

When we came down from Esel, the first cable car and cogwheel train had not yet started. So we pretty much had the terrace, any sunning chair, telescope and all the viewpoints and trails to ourselves (and a few overnight guests).

I(Chris) decided to explore the “Dragon Trail” which wraps around the mountain behind Hotel Pilatus-Kulm and includes a series of short tunnels cut into a side of the mountain. Windows were created to provide a better vantage point for the view of Lucerne and central Switzerland.

Hotel Bellevue and the aerial cable car terminal from “inside” the Dragon Trail

While it was not cloudy at 2000-plus meter, it would appeared to be a cloudy morning for someone below. We could see a bed of cloud slowly creeping across the woodlands and pastures at lower altitude.

Klimsenhorn Chapel (Klimsenkapelle) at 1,864 m and its crucifix present a set of distant but stunning subjects in the scenery. The neo-Gothic building was inaugurated in 1861 and originally belonged to the Hotel Klimsenhorn, which was demolished in 1967.

The rising sun casted a long shadow behind the chapel.

The chapel remained and is now preserved by a foundation. It was last renovated in 2004. A trail visibly leads up to the crucifix. Just imagine the inspiring, spiritual sight as you walk up to it.

The Dragon Trail afforded different views from the other side of the mountain behind Hotel Pilatus-Kulm. Being the only one on the Trail, I really appreciated the sense of solitude.

Towards the end of the 10-minute walk, the paved Dragon Trail became a series of steps with switchbacks, culminating in a nearly-vertical climb though a hole. A surprising view greeted me as I emerged near the top of Oberhaupt – the other peak that is accessible directly from the terrace.

Oberhaupt (Head-Leader, 2,105 m [6,906 ft]) is located west of Hotel Pilates-Kulm. I was really glad that there were no masses of tourists on the narrow path.

The peak of Oberhaupt is closed to the public due to the communication installations. At that altitude, there were no trees only shrubs.

Hotel Pilatus-Kulm and the terrace and Oberhaupt from Esel

Following a paved path and stairs, I came back down to the terrace next to the hotel, effectively completing a circuit. As there were hardly any one around, it was tempting to do a quick hike on an easy trail to the third and tallest peak – Tomlishorn – which is 20 minutes away.

Instead, I joined Sue for a nice buffet breakfast at the Queen Victoria. After all, with a healthy dose of fresh mountain air, we were very thirsty and hungry by that time.

When we were checking out of the hotel, only a few fluffy clouds remained and the city of Lucerne 1700 meters (5500 feet) below us was visible from our window ! This kind of view of the ground is usually possible only from an airplane.

Click here to see the hotel, cable car and gondola in part 1.

We had a really memorable overnight stay.

Views from above St. Moritz

St. Moritz lies on the southern slopes of the Albula Alps, a mountain range in eastern Switzerland, overlooking the flat and wide glaciated valley of Engadine and Lake St. Moritz.

Because we were visiting just after the peak tourist season, the hotel gave us free unlimited passes for use on the cable cars and funicular trains that were still running, basically all the routes which travel up to the most popular viewpoints.

We traveled up to two other peaks beside Muottas Muragl (see last post): Piz Nair which is directly atop the center of St Mortiz Dorf, and Signal which is situated above St. Moritz Bad.

To reach Piz Nair, a funicular departs from the town center to Corviglia, a ski area at 2,486 m (8,156 ft). Then, we took a cable car to the upper station that is 30 metres (100 ft) below the summit.

Corviglia has a restaurant and a flat area for people to lounge around under the sun, and for young kids to ride their bikes in a small circuit. It is the center of the largest ski area in the Engadine valley.

This mountain hosted the alpine skiing events for the 1948 Winter Olympics. It also hosted the World Championships in 1934, 1974, 2003, and 2017.

From Corviglia, we transferred to a cable car (gondola) to continue our ascent.

There are 24 ski lifts, 36 slopes and 14 mountain restaurants.

In the summer, the same installations support hiking and mountain biking.

As we gained altitude, the conifers thinned out. The biome changed to alpine pasture, and soon the elevation was too high for most vegetation except a thin layer of lichens on rock surfaces.

At the summit stood a statue of an ibex, a large mountain goat with curved horns. Needless to say, the panoramic view from here at 10,026 ft (3,056 m) was fantastic.

Surrounding us were many higher peaks, one with a mini glacier.

We saw many trails radiating from Piz Nair. Several small groups of cyclists were riding with us in the cable cars with their dirt bikes, fully equipped for a fast and furious way downhill.

Signal at 2130 m is another destination that we visited. The cable car station was only 5 minute walk from our hotel in St Moritz Bad.

On the short ride up to Signal, we got to see St. Moritz hugging the lake, from a different direction (west to east).

The trip offered a typical view of off-season ski slopes – almost mundane.

We also saw the funicular that took us up to Corviglia. It did not seem so dramatic when we were on it.

We will end this post with a photo of windsurfing and kite-surfing on Lake Champfer and a corner of the neighboring town of Silvaplana (reaching the limit of our point-and-shoot zoom camera).

To see more above St. Moritz, go to our post on Muottas Muragl, click here.

Muottas Muragl looking over St. Moritz

Muottas Muragl is a location on the southern slopes of Blais da Muottas (2,568 m) and offers at 8,051 feet (2,454 m) the most beautiful vantage point above the lakes of Upper Engadine valley. 

Muottas Muragl is situated between the villages of Samedan and Pontresina, accessible by a funicular railway built in 1907 that takes a 700-meter climb from Punt Muragl.  At the top, there is a hotel and a panoramic restaurant. 

This photo of the hotel and restaurant (with a straight-up funicular) at Muottas Muragl is taken from another mountainous location further down the valley.

We took a bus from our hotel, passed the town center at St. Moritz Dorf then the main train station, heading in the direction of Samedan to the funicular base station (1739 m).

The track is very steep, as much as 54% gradient. There are two counterbalanced carriages that ride on the same track. When the carriages come close together, the track splits into two as a “passing loop” for both carriages to pass one another.

We did not time the ride but it felt like 10-12 minutes. The first half of the line ran entirely through a forest, the second part of the line went on open mountain pasture.

The main attraction of Muottas Muragl is the view of the Upper Engadin valley flanked by views of Piz Palü, and Piz Bernina with Biancograt.  Picturesque defined.

Renovated in 2010, the Romantik Hotel Muottas Muragl is the first “Plus Energy” Hotel anywhere in the Alps, producing more solar energy on an annual average than the hotel itself requires. The excess energy is stored by a geothermal circuit underground. It is also CO2-neutral.

Apparently, the restaurant is not a fast-food style cafeteria typically found at summit locations. It is a gourmet restaurant which serves dinner accompanied by a spectacular sunset view. The funicular train runs until 11pm.

We did not bother to get anything there as it was quite crowded (not safe).

The location provides a bird’s eye view of the entire St. Moritz (above).

Unlike most of the high mountain locations, it does not provide skiing, although there are numerous Alpine hiking trails, snow shoeing trails and a toboggan-run to the station below.

There is a short loop behind the hotel that takes one to several vantage points in different directions and art. The iron sculpture (above) by Curdin Niggli, presented in 2007 to commemorate the 100-year anniversary of the funicular railway, symbolises the crossing of the two railways in the middle (in Romansh “Cruscheda”).

We spotted a few hang gliders.

We encountered a herd of black Hérens cows happily relaxing behind an inconspicuous fence.  They seemed to be free to roam anywhere on the mountain. We think the fence is to prevent them from wandering into the restaurant and hotel.

Along the loop, we saw “Sine sole sileo” – the world’s most precise sundial. In winter, it can also be used as an almost equally precise moondial.  Its unique construction makes it possible to read the time to an accuracy of an incredible 10 seconds.

«Il Guot» – Romansh for «the drop» – is a unique work of art created by Timo Lindner to mark the centenary of the funicular railway. The drop, which is made of natural stone and mortar and coated in white marble, symbolises water in all its various forms, from rain to ice to snow.

It was a really nice sunny windless day with comfortable temperatures. R & R at high altitude.

Our trips in 2020

Dear Readers, Happy 2021 !

What a nightmarish year we had.  Glad that it is the beginning of a new year.  Although the problems are not going away immediately, it is however symbolic that we are all moving on, to a better tomorrow. And we will …

It is a tradition on this blog to take a look back at some of the places we visited last year. Because of the pandemic, we traveled very little, Morocco in January and the Eastern side of Switzerland in September, plus a day trip to Bern.

Marrakesh, Morocco – Jemaa el-Fna and Kotoubia

Dar Darma, Marrakesh

Merzouga – the edge of Sahara

Essaouira on the Atlantic coast of Morocco

Grimselsee at 1,908 m (6,260 ft), Switzerland

Muottas Muragl at 8,051 feet (2,454 m) above St Moritz

A night in a yurt at Tgalucas, Alp Flix at 6,463 feet (1,970 m)

Staring at Piz Bernina 4,049 m (13,283 ft)

A night on the Pilatus summit at 6,801 feet (2,073 m) to see sunrise before 7 am.

Sunrise from Esel at 6,949 feet (2,118 m), Mount Pilatus

Oberhaupt at 6,906 feet (2,105 m), Mount Pilatus

The Parliament Building, Bundesplatz, Bern

For 2021, I(Chris) bought a new camera by Olympus with 2 lenses – the pictures above (and many others on the blog) were taken using a Lumix LX7 or a Lumix TZ101.  The photo below was snapped by an iPhone XR –  it is not from an advertisement. We will have a separate post about the camera system later.

Testing the new camera around town – Lausanne.

We also upgraded our software from Lightroom 6 to Lightroom Classic.

Hope to make more black & white photos in 2021.

 

Five Alps mountain passes in two days, part 4

On our second day of this road trip to the Eastern side of Switzerland, we drove from Andermatt (after a detour to Airolo and San Gotthard pass) to St. Moritz.

How about a bit of Bach for this stretch of the road trip:

We took Hauptstrassen 19 running alongside the river Vorderrhein (which feeds into the Rhine) to Flims, crossing the canton border from Uri to Graubünden, and passing through a string of picture-perfect villages.

The famous Glacier Express also runs through this valley.  It is 90 years old in 2020 and claims to be the slowest express train in the world. See the avalanche barrier (photo below on the left) protecting the road and the track.

The tourist train with panoramic windows and catering onboard runs a 8-hour journey from Zermatt to St Moritz covering a 290-km length that includes 91 tunnels and 291 viaducts. This train is the best option to see this area without driving.  We might use it to see areas that are not reachable by car in the future.  Highly recommended.

We just caught sight of one going over a bridge above us.

Before the village of Disentis, we passed but did not stop at Oberalpass 6706 feet (2044 m).

This pass is important logistically, and different from the others because not only it has a small lake (Oberalpsee), it also has a train station, a ski area, and a lighthouse!

The 14 m-tall lighthouse was installed in 2010 as a tourist attraction and came from the river Rhine further downstream.

This was a local train which runs between the villages and uses the same viaducts and track as the Glacier Express.

We turned South on A13 towards Thursis but detoured to see Viamala-schlucht (see post here), before continuing to Albula.

Joining the national highway A3 at Albula, we passed Lake Marmorera within the boundary of Parc Ela.

The road became twisty again as we started our ascent towards the fifth mountain pass – Julierpass.  But this road is nowhere near the spectacles of Grimselpass and Furkapass we saw the day before.  Apparently, certain sections of this road were rebuilt in 2009 to reduce the number of serpentine turns.

Julierpass at 7493 feet (2284 m) in the Albula range of the Alps connects the Engadin valley with the rest of Graubünden.

Julierpass lies between Piz Lagrev (10,384 feet, 3165 m) and Piz Julier (11,090 feet; 3380 m), and crosses the watershed / drainage divide between the basins of the Rivers Rhine and Danube.

Historically, the romans built a temple of Jupiter on top of the pass.  There are two buildings now – the red one with lots of windows is the Julier Theatre built by Origen – an organization that maintains the Rhaeto-Romanic cultural heritage.  Rhaeto-Romance is a family of romance languages that include the fourth official language of Switzerland – Romansh.

It is a wooden construction and has multiple terraces inside.  The spectator terraces embrace a central stage which directs the view of the audience outside to the vastness of the landscape during a performance.  According to Origen’s web site, Julie Theatre will “dedicate itself to the world theatre, it will act with the seasons and reinterpret the mountain pass as a place of culture.”

The other building is a tower but we cannot find a description about it. Both buildings were closed and there was no one around except curious motorists.

From this point on, the drive was all downhill to Silvaplana 5,955 ft (1,815 m) and Highway 27 took us to St. Moritz – 5,978 ft (1,822 m).

We arrived at our hotel in St Moritz after 7 pm and concluded the long day of driving with a nice dinner.

In two days, we managed to see Grimselpass, Furkapass, St Gotthard pass, Oberlap pass and Julierpass – watersheds of major rivers of Northern and Southern Europe.  It was mountaineering by car.  Ideally, we would like to have experienced the vast openness, forever-changing cloud formations, and muted colors of the Alpine landscape by hiking.  We are considering this trip as a preview.

Click to see our earlier posts on this road trip, part 1, part 2, and part 3.

Viamala-schlucht, Graubünden

On the second day of our road trip to St. Moritz, after St Gotthard Pass (6,909 ft; 2,106 m), we detoured to see the Viamala Gorge (Viamala-schlucht) in the canton of Graubünden. Click the following links to see our whirlwind tour of these Alpine mountain passes Grimselpass, Furkapass and St Gottard pass. The fourth pass will be featured in our next post.

The gorge was first called the “Evil Road” by mule drivers (“Via Mala” in Romansch) as it was a major obstacle on the approach to the Alpine passes of Splügen and San Bernardino.

Viamala lies between the small town of Thusis and Andeer, and had been recognized since Roman times.  The gorge was created by glacial ice and the water of the Upper Rhine (Hinterrhein) carving into the mountain for thousands of years, resulting in steep cliffs as much as 300 meters deep from top to bottom.

Instead of music, try some natural sounds of water.

Various bridges and tunnels were built over the last few hundreds of years to give better access to this part of the Alps.  The first stone bridge was built in the 1400’s followed by two others built in the 1700’s.  For a motorist with a map, it is still quite confusing.  As a motorway (A13) was built in 1967 along the river near the top of the gorge, one has to find the right exit to reach the visitor center below the highway.  Viamala is only open from April 1 to November 1.

In 1903, a set of stairs was built to enable touristic exploration of the gorge.  In 2010’s, a new visitor center was built by local architects near where once a kiosk stood. It is a strange-looking, modern concrete structure, looking more like a military installation.

The building is positioned at the edge of a 60 meter deep cliff and acts as a transition from the road into the gorge. The placement of the walls, the terrace and the stairs follow the topography.

While the structure appears closed towards the road except the narrow horizontal window, the other faces of the building are furnished with large window panes, as high as the room itself, which frame the impressive landscape.

The visitor center has a cafe and a small souvenir shop stocking guide books and even a 1934 Swiss novel about a murder in Viamala (later adapted into a film and TV show).

This canyon is probably one of the narrowest part of the gorge.  A 359-step staircase descends to the canyon center bringing the visitor face-to-face with the lower half of the canyon.

Half way down the stairs, the path crosses over one channel of the narrow canyon and splits into two.

The path that goes upstream leads to another set of descending stairs which bores through the rock and ends at a viewing platform.

Not quite near the bottom of the canyon, we were wondering where the water level will be in spring/early summer when the snow melts.

The sight and sound must be spectacular here with a much larger volume of water coming down from the glaciers and mountains.

The rushing water carried big boulders from somewhere upstream and left the biggest ones stuck between the walls of the channel.  

The water in the channel cascades from one big boulder to the next, and gushes through tight gaps.

Over the years, the water sculpted the sides of the channel which are now smooth and contoured.  These zoomed-in photos do not do justice to the narrowness and depth of the canyon.

The other path that heads downstream follow the channel hugging one side of the canyon.  It felt a bit like a tunnel as the overhanging rock almost touches the other side of the canyon wall.

It was shady and humid inside the canyon. The smooth rock surfaces that are now exposed suggest that they are underwater seasonally depending on the volume of flow.

The smooth rock faces had been washed by running water and therefore cannot hold onto any soil. The upper surfaces are covered by a carpet of mosses.

This passage ends in a small viewing platform overlooking a slightly wider section of the canyon.

There is another parking area further downstream where one can get closer to the water.

But we had to get to St Moritz before dark, so off we went to the last mountain pass.

Five Alps mountain passes in two days, part 3

For the first night of this short trip, we stayed in Andermatt (1437 m).  It is a mountain village in the canton of Uri, and has been the historical center of north-south and east-west traverses of Switzerland.

The village is connected by three Alpine passes: the Oberalp Pass (6,706 ft; 2,044 m.) to the east connecting the Surselva in the canton of Graubünden, the St Gotthard Pass (6,909 ft; 2,106 m.) to the south connecting with the Valle Leventina in canton of Ticino, and the Furka Pass (7,992 ft; 2,436 m.) to the west connecting with the Obergoms in canton of Valais, where we came from the previous day. To the north the steeply descending Schöllenen Gorge links Andermatt with Göschenen (1080m, 3540 ft).

I picked this piece of music (from an old Peter Greenaway film) to accompany us to mountain pass number 3.

It appears that Andermatt is undergoing an ambitious construction program to expand it into a luxury mountain resort.  We stayed at the new Radisson Blu Hotel which is housed in a multi-storey complex that includes luxury apartments (as holiday homes) and a concert hall.  Sue really enjoyed the hotel’s spa and very modern 4-lane stainless steel swimming pool with turn markings.

Driving on the new third Devil’s Bridge (Teufelsbrücke, built 1958) over the river Reuss, we noticed the graphic on the left (see photo below). Dozens of medieval stone arch bridges (also named Devil’s Bridge) in Europe were built with heroic efforts given the challenging conditions like here, where legend has it that the local populace made a bargain with the devil for the bridge in exchange for their souls. An older second bridge built in 1830 is situated underneath it and the first wooden bridge across Schöllenen Gorge was built around 1220.

Our plan on the second day was to drive over to the St Gotthard Pass but we took a wrong turn and descended the Schöllenen Gorge to Göschenen.  Located at the northern end of the Gotthard Road Tunnel and the Gotthard Rail Tunnel lies Göschenen and its railway station. The village grew up around a bridge over the Reuss.  As a result of our unintended detour, we had to joined the A2 motorway and entered the Gotthard Road Tunnel heading South in the direction of Italy.

Our course change was irreversible since we did not notice any place to turn around before entering the tunnel. Fifteen minutes later, we emerged from the tunnel (17 km, 10.5 miles) outside the town of Airolo (see below) in the Canton of Ticino. The tunnel was constructed in 1980 and was the longest in the world at that time. It runs entirely within Switzerland, consists of only one bidirectional tube with two lanes and is notorious for traffic jams. I was glad that traffic was moving smoothly through the tunnel on that day. Unlike the Grand San Bernard tunnel which crosses the Swiss and Italian border further west, this tunnel is apparently free as long as you have paid the annual fee for motorway access (vignette automobile).

To get to the St Gotthard Pass, we drove all the way back up to the top from the southern side of the Alps, using initially the old road – Tremola San Gottardo – which is the longest road monument in Switzerland and like old buildings, it is listed in an inventory of historic roads.

Looking back at Airolo and the Leventina valley.

It is also one of the highest paved roads in Europe. Located on the left side of the Val Tremola mountain, in one stretch over a length of four kilometers it climbs a height of 300 meters in 24 hairpin bends.

Sue was driving (and I was busy photographing everything) – there were just endless twists and turns.  Half way up, we joined the National Road 2, expecting that the now-unimportant road to be less maintained, but it was pristine, looking like when it was first paved in 1951. For more information on this road, click here for the website of History of Airolo.

This detour was not planned, but we ended up seeing some spectacular sights on the way down the Schöllenen Gorge and during the climb from Airolo (1,175 m; 3,855 ft) back up to the St Gotthard pass (Passo del San Gottardo) at 2,091 m (6,860 ft).

Once we reached the pass, the view opens up to a high plateau.  There is a cafe/bar (biker’s meeting place), hotel, restaurant, hospice, souvenir shop, museum, historical fortress and several small lakes.

As it was a nice day, the parking area was crowded with cars and a few tour buses, including a Swiss Post Bus.

It was the busiest mountain pass we have seen for the entire trip.  Among the five passes, the quietest was Furkapass (click here to see our previous post).

A chapel dedicated to Saint Gotthard of Hildesheim (960-1038 AD, canonized 1131), who was considered the patron saint of mountain passes, was built on the southern slope of the pass and consecrated by the archbishop of Milan in 1230.  The pass soon became known after the saint, by as early as 1236.  For such a historical place, it was a shame that we did not get to see the Museo Nazionale del San Gottardo (photo below) which was closed for renovation.

The pass is a continental divide between the Rhine, which flows into the North Sea and the river Ticino towards Milan, which after leaving Switzerland flows into the Po and ultimately into the Adriatic Sea.

We saw quite a few wind turbines being installed here, understandably a rather windy place (not on the day we visited).  Some were not fully installed.  What we did not see here was the fortress – Sasso – which required a fee for entrance.  In 1886 the first fortress was built and many secrets surround the buildings which include miles of corridors, elevators, bunkers, and gun stands. Even a hospital lies hidden in the rock.

A set of bronze statutes remind us of the pilgrims, traders, tourists and mountain guides who have been passing through here for more than a thousand years.

We left the St Gottard pass around midday, headed back towards Andermatt, and continued our journey eastward towards the fourth and fifth mountain passes – Oberalpass and Julierpass, before our destination – St Moritz.

 

Road trip in Morocco #4 – from Ouarzazate to Essaouira

This is the last post of a series that documented our second road trip across Morocco that took us from the desert camp at Merzouga to Essaouira on the Atlantic coast. It was a jaunt of about 1000 km made in 3 days.  You can follow our trip to Ouarzazate on this blog here and here.

This was how the last leg began. We left Dar Chamaa in Ouarzazate at about 10 am.

To reach the Atlantic coast from Ouarzazate, we had to traverse the High Atlas and go through the center of Marrakech. We took a detour on P1506 to visit the kasbah at Telouet.

On this desert road, we passed a restaurant called China Red (Zhong Quo Hong) offering at least cafe, tea, juice, and wifi. This road must be popular with mainland tourists.

The road P1506 connects the settlements along the stream (Asif Ounila) with the main highway N9. Palm trees and arable land lined the banks.

We were traveling upstream for many kilometers, and then the road turned westward and headed into the mountain.

Here is a photo of our SUV for the road trip, a black Toyota Land Cruiser Prado, comfortable and energetic.

There was hardly any traffic on this stretch of P1506.

Telouet was our destination and the kasbah was very much worth the detour.  It will be the subject of a future post.

After Telouet, we rejoined the highway N9 to get to Marrakech which is on the other side of the snowy High Atlas mountain range.

N9 crosses the High Atlas at Tizi n’Tichka (Col du Tichka).  At 2260 m (7400 feet) above sea level, it is the highest major mountain pass in North Africa. We did not stop at this rest area, instead we went on to a restaurant which provided lunch accompanied by a panoramic view.

N9 was constructed along the old caravan trail by the French military in 1936.

Facing northwest, the plain on the other side of the High Atlas stretches towards Marrakech as far as the eye can see.

From here, it was all downhill on a highway … and soon we saw the street lights of Marrakech … the city does not have a ring road so we cannot bypass the city center.

While stuck in city center traffic, we inched along with this truck ahead that was advertising a go-kart circuit. Using a mirror, the driver of the car behind could see himself. Interesting marketing idea.  But would that image motivate a driver to want to race a smaller vehicle in circles?

We passed the main train station of Marrakech. To return to Marrakech a few days later, we used a coach service (which also terminated here), but we never had the chance/need to use the railway service.

Leaving Marrakech westbound on Highway N8, we passed this massive telecommunication installation situated on a mesa. Must be pushing out 5-bar strong signals ?!  Speaking about cellphone service, we had no problem at all even in smaller towns. The government has made some real investments here.

This area which lies between Marrakech and the Atlantic coast is flat and the prime area for cultivating argan tree (Argania spinosa). We stopped by the highway briefly at an agriculture commune where women were demonstrating the extraction of argan oil from the nut. We had seen it already in Fes at another women’s commune, and bought our share. The oil is trendy at least in Europe and a valuable export for Morocco (the tree is native and found only in Morocco).

These are young trees in a plantation. If you search online (try here, it is a bit surreal), you will find photos of several goats climbing or standing on branches of an argan tree. We did not witness this but apparently the goats climb up to reach and eat the fruits. It has been said that the goats cannot digest the nut and poop it out, and people can harvest the nuts from the poop to make argan oil. Voila.

While descending to Essaouira on highway R207, we caught our first sight of the Atlantic. It was nice to see an ocean after days of endless expanse of sand and rocks.

Essaouira is a fishing port and a beach resort, well known for wind surfing. As it was the winter season, there was hardly any tourist.

Our lodging was at the edge of the medina near the Avenue du Caire entrance. We never found out why there were so many taxis going around with the Moroccan flag flying.

Finally, we arrived at the west coast of Morocco having started the journey near its eastern border with Algeria.

What a truly memorable, bucket-list, cross-country excursion.

Part 1, 2, and 3 are here, here and here.