Plan-free London to Morocco

Around 20 years ago I announced to my other half that I was bored and had itchy feet. In response, she bought me a one-way plane ticket. Luckily for me, it was a ticket from Morocco. All I had to do was find a way of getting there that wasn’t boring.

It was the journey by train, boat and bus that opened my eyes to what I had been missing at 30,000 feet. Fast forward to now and I fancy recreating that little jaunt, but I can’t tell anyone my plans.

What price freedom?

No one knows where I’m going or how, because I don’t know either. I’m going to leave any decisions on where to go and what to do until the need arises.

Airline-style dynamic pricing has shaking up the travel industry and we can now plan our trips months in advance to the tiniest detail, all at the lowest possible price. But there’s a cost.

Planning and then commiting to an itinery comes at the price of spontenaity - the freedom to respond to the world around us or just how we feel in the moment. It’s our free time so let’s be free with it.

During last autumn’s Interrail sale, I picked up a pass with 25% off so I could travel when I felt like it. In total, I paid £320 for a four-day pass, including all the sneaky seat reservation fees levied by rail companies (they never promised to be our friends).

It’s mid-January and, after getting the green light from my better half and daughter, who have just marked my time away on the calendar as holiday for them, I reserve a Eurostar seat to Paris for the following morning.

When the fun stops, stop

I’m on the Eurostar, I look at the Interrail app and I see there’s a direct train from Paris to Barcelona leaving at 2:42pm and arriving in the Catalan capital at 9:30pm. Occasionally I’m in the mood for a really long journey (14 hours on a day train is my record) but today this feels like an endurance test so I book a seat to a nearer Catalan town, Perpignan. Of course, I can get off the train earlier if I feel like it…

As the train heads through the Massif Central and so from Northern to Southern Europe, I toy with getting off at Sète and seeing if that little bar at La Pointe Courte is open, but looking at the weather, I decide to go to the bar on the train instead. At least at Perpignan I can wake up to a view of the snow-capped Pyrenees. I spend the evening wandering around the deathly-quiet streets - we’re clearly not in Spain yet.

From the brilliant to the sublime

Curtains open - it’s a gloriously sunny morning and after a wander up to the Palace of the Kings of Majorca (Perpignan hasn’t always been French) and around the last remnant of Vauban’s defences against the Spanish, I catch the train to Madrid.

Passing through Figueres, Girona, Barcelona and Tarragona gives me some ideas about where I might want to stop on the way back.

As the train whips along the Ebro valley into Aragon and then skirting Bardenas Reales, Terry Gilliam’s nemesis, I remember that I was meant to go for a trek across the desert landscape a couple of years ago. Oh well, maybe another time.

Arriving in super-sized Zaragoza Decicas station brings back to mind a trip I took from Zaragoza to Valencia passing through Teruel - the town that doesn’t exist. Now that would be a really good place to see some Moorish masterpieces. Too late, the train doors are shut.

When we reach Madrid, I head for El Retiro Park - the sun is shining and doing its best to contradict the view that Madrid is too cold in winter.

I grab some whitebait and a glass of house white at El Brillante and think about where I should head this afternoon.

I’ve never been to Cadiz, but it’s 4 ½ hours away and I’ve spent the whole morning on a train. Malaga is only 2 ½ hours away and I know some good places to eat, but in the end I plumb for Seville - I want to see something Moorish.

Evening in Seville starts with a paseo. Wandering around the sublime Moorish masterpiece of La Giralda with the sound of a busker playing an allegria sets the tone for tomorrow’s crossing.

It’s also a chance to take in a couple of bars where I can try out some Spanish. Speaking to some old boy about what he’s eating reminds me I really need to learn more of the lingo - nevermind, I can probably work it out by looking at what’s in his beard.

Which port?

I’ve used two of my four Interrail days and now I’m switching to coaches which work really well around Spain for these sorts of trips. The following morning I catch the coach to Algeciras after a classic breakfast at the bus station of pulped tomatoes and olive oil on a pillowy toasted roll.

On arriving at the port, seeing the crossing times and having a pang to arrive directly into Tangier, rather than the industrial port 60km away, I changed my mind about which ferry to take and catch the bus to Tarifa.

I’d be forgoing the view from the ferry of sweeping past the Pillars of Hercules, Gibraltar and Jebel Musa, but I can do it on my way back.

Of course, if I had planned ahead I’d have been able to get the bus from Seville directly to Tarifa…

The bus to Tarifa skirts around the very edge of Europe, with Africa always in sight, to the little port with its well-used fortifications.

Passing the statue of Jesus offering a blessing at the harbour exit with the fortress behind is a reminder that the narrow strait between Europe and Africa hasn’t always been benign.

It’s a beautiful day for the crossing and I leave it as late as I can before joining the queue to get an entrance visa. It’s this little bit of bureaucracy that reminds me of reading about George Orwell’s poor-planning when he was passing this way.

The Spanish Civil War was in its final phase - and George and his wife Eileen were travelling from England to French Morocco for his health. They failed to properly check the boats itinery and as a result, ended up having to travel to Tangier and make their way across Spanish territory by train - as someone with a passport showing he had fought for the other side, it was a pretty risky thing to do.

Tangier

As the boat pulls into the harbour, I enable my e-sim and toy with looking for somewhere to stay. Leave it ‘till later. Time to get some mint tea.