Travellers Comments – Portugal

Private Arrangements for PATTERSON, December-January in Morocco!

 

Hi Holly,

we had a wonderful trip. Morocco was so interesting in all respects, the scenery, culture, people, shopping of course and the food. Our bags were chock-a-block coming home having added 10 kg to both. We also sent home 3 parcels from Morocco!
Our driver, Younes Bakkar, was fabulous, we got on so well with him, he fitted in so well, as he said to us ‘you are no longer tourists but my family’, yes he was ours as well. He looked after us beyond his duty doing many little extras that were not in his job description. We were very appreciative of his efforts. He always took us to places to eat which he knew were of excellent quality. He also took us to a dinner and show in Marrakech which was fun and took us through the medina in a village near Erfoud before going into the desert. In the medina we visited a traditional natural pharmacy, that was a great experience. If you would pass on to Alizes Travel these thoughts and our appreciation for his work. Their vehicle was excellent too. Younes is a credit to himself and Alizes Travel and is deserving of praise from his boss.
Thank you for the dinner at Rick’s Café; it was sensational and great finish to a great holiday.
Thank you again for all your efforts in putting our trip together; you did a wonderful job.

Geoff and Lyn

 

Spain, Portugal & Morocco
Hi Holly,

a quick note to give you feedback on our trip. It was an extremely well organized and interesting holiday, with both of us loving our time in all 3 countries. The weather treated us kindly and we saw many amazing things plus had a lot of fun.

Thank you, Holly, for having everything so brilliantly organized for us – it provided the foundation for a top rate holiday.

Many Thanks Noel and Bev

 

Private Spain & Portugal Tour, October 2014
Dear Holly,

I am back in Sydney. Certainly all 6 members of the group have enjoyed the trip you planned.

Thank you. Andy Mak

 

 

 

 

Dear Holly,

I am writing to thank you for booking a wonderful trip for our family. As there is no evaluation form, I wanted to write to say what a great companion Hicham was to us. He was so thoughtful, courteous, professional and well informed. Every part of the trip, he consulted us and planned ahead to make sure that things went smoothly and that our interests (e.g. photography, food preferences) were catered for. Hicham is a wealth of knowledge on Moroccan history and Berber culture. We also had great discussions on Islam and exchanged Arabic lessons with him for Chinese ones 🙂 I will definitely be recommending him to friends who travel to Morocco.

We also enjoyed most of our local guides, who were usually knowledgeable and enthusiastic.

The rooms you booked for us were beautiful. We enjoyed all the various properties along the way. It was a great idea not to pre-book dinners. The portions served everywhere were huge!

The itinerary was well paced. We liked arriving in most cities in the afternoon, having a relaxing evening, then exploring it the next day. The only day that was longer than we expected was the drive from Fez to Boumalne. We left at 8:30 am, and after site-seeing along the way, we did not arrive at our hotel til after 9pm. It was quite tiring for us and for Hicham.

Thank you once again. Kind regards, Emyo Wang

Hi Holly,

Now back in Oz and had a great time and everything you organised worked out really well, especially the locations of the hotels in Barcelona and Madrid. Thanks so much. I really enjoyed everything and Spain Portugal and Morocco are such interesting places.

Kind Regards, Jeniffer Petty.

 

Hi Holly – Just a note to thank you for the organising – all went seamlessly – great trip & experience.
Kind Regards, Ken Adeline

Spain and Morocco Trip 2005
Now that the normal work routine has returned, I thought I would give you some feedback on the trip.
Spain: The Hotel Londres E Inglaterra was wonderful. San Sebastion is a wonderful place to walk, eat tapas, and use as a base for a drive in the surrounding area. Both the Hotels Petit Palace in Bilbao and Sevilla were well presented very modern hotels. The Gugenheim museum was fantastic and worth 1/2 a day. The Bilbao hotel was on the tram line to the museum which made travel easy. Seville was wonderful also, plenty to see in the city itself.
Morocco: After the initial culture shock (two taxi drivers having a fight over who was going to get our fare; we went with a third!). Marrakech was fantastic. The Maison Mnabha was an excellent suggestion, we were sad to leave Peter and Lawrence. The Riad was immaculate full of atmosphere, nothing was too much trouble. We had several dinners (candlelight), there as well, one cooked in the hamman. The room had two dozen red roses, olives and nuts fresh each day, specially cooked biscuits on the last day. Breakfasts were great, freshly stewed figs, pastries etc. All in all a great place.
We went to the atlas mountains on a small group day tour and to Essaouira for the day with a driver. The La Maison Arabe was a great hotel but not in the centre of things like Mnabha and being bigger didn’t have the same intimate feeling as Mnabha. It was much better than a Sheraton etc, type of hotel, but having been spoilt at Mnabha I would prefer Mnabha any day. The cooking class was held at La Maison Arabe’s pool area some 10-15 minutes away by car from the hotel. The class was good but ended up only being a one course class. The most interesting thing was there was a Moroccan chef and a translator who turned out to be a professor at the University and we had a good talk to him about the current state of Moroccan culture and Politics. We were served the meal we cooked by the pool. Thank you again for your helpful suggestions we had a wonderful holiday.

John Giles