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2019 Flavours of the Iberian Peninsula

Fascinating! A Spanish enclave on the North African coast which could now, of course, be an entry point for (illegal) immigrants into the European Union. This means that the border security has changed vastly in recent times ("recent" can mean 50 years, or more, in historical terms).

As there was an afternoon "easy" trip (we generally don't do morning - early to rise - or "overactive" trips nowadays) we decided to take it. Good choice in some ways, bad in others. A couple of photo stops (at forts), interesting but not too exciting:

A fort from the ship, the ship from a fort and another fort!

Unfair really. They were extremely interesting if you were not (like us) travellers who have "been there, seen it, done that". Anyway, the tour now really got going!

Because of the exchange rate it is worth people queueing for hours to cross the border as there appears to be some "duty free" arrangement whereby people can sell things at a good enough profit to justify the waiting in line. Didn't quite understand the ins and outs but sister Ann and Michael went on the same trip in the morning and said that the amount of vehicles was astonishing. We saw the dregs and that was enough.

Now the bad bit of the trip, all photos of the border from the coach! Fascinating to see but not easy to photograph.

The Border from the driver's viewpoint and a crossing point

Morocco from the coach

Well worth the cost (which, nowadays, is not cheap on Saga trips).