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Category: Americas and Eurasia and Africa

Morocco & Andalucia: “characteristic” (#2 in teaser series: olives, olives, olives…)

 

 

…in  southern Spain one can often look in all directions and see seemingly-endless numbers of olive trees, dominating the landscape.

It is very easy to accept the fact that Spain is the world’s #1 producer of olive oil!

Olive oil is central to much Spanish cuisine, including delicious dark chocolate which has no dairy content.

When it comes to eating table olives, however, Moroccans are the more avid consumers.

In both the wide variety on offer and the olives’ generally high quality, I think Morocco is  #1 for table olives, at least when one is in Morocco.

My photo looks down from a rooftop restaurant in Marrakech on the night of 19 October 2025.

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Morocco & Andalucia: “characteristic” (#1 in teaser series)

 

 

We have just spent the second half of October in Morocco, and the first part of November in southern Spain.

This little single-image series highlights key aspects of those places.

We had expected/already knew of some of them.

Others surprised us.

This post’s photo covers both categories.

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Signage & Signification (final in series: a Spanish hotel’s pointed reminder to guests from the USA)

 

 

 

 

Actually, two continents comprise most of the Americas, but the Spanish hotelier’s point is well-made.

I suspect that few guests from the USA even notice the “writing on the hotel lobby wall”,  let alone grasp its message.

This hotel has a most “unlikely” name, given its quintessentially Andalusian location.

The Hotel America has 17 rooms and a (good) courtyard restaurant which serves homestyle Granadan food.

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Signage & Signification (#12 in series: Moroccan graffiti/street art)

To a local resident, the meaning was probably perfectly clear.

To these visitors to Chefchaouen (Morocco’s famously “blue” city) it was a mystery, but we enjoyed looking at the pictured wall, which is on one of the city’s many narrow, cobbled, very steep streets and laneways.

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Signage & Signification (#11 in series: defiant but vague)

 

The location is a “historic”, cobbled street in Catania, which sits below Mount Etna.

Contrary to popular misconception, Europe’s biggest volcano has never “devastated” Catania. (although an earthquake once did)

Catania is second to Palermo in population, but Catania is Sicily’s industrial/commercial hub.

If Sicily/Italy ever does go down whatever “revolutionary road” the graffitist had in mind, let us hope that it leads to a less corrupt, less bloodthirsty, more fair and more freedom-favouring future than any avid student of history would have good reason to expect!

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Signage & Signification (#10 in series: 100% pure propaganda)

 

The fabled “Silk Road” city of Kashgar (aka Kashi) in southern Xinjiang has been a trading hub for thousands of years.

One of China’s westernmost cities, it is home to circa one million residents, and is a fascinating destination.

Its gleaming, newish museum is huge.

Unsurprisingly, it houses many historical treasures.

It is billed as a “must see”.

If your desire is to learn anything meaningful about Xinjiang’s history, Kashgar Museum is in fact a “must miss”.

However, as a cheerlessly relentless example of the lies and utter drivel which totalitarian states inflict upon their citizens (and visitors), Kashgar Museum certainly offers a “world class” experience.

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Signage & Signification (#9 in series: after “an exertion of fraternal aid”)

 

On 14 May 2024 we enjoyed an unforgettably delicious meal at an Afghan restaurant in Pakistan’s capital city.

You are looking at the sign in front of it, in Islamabad.

Sometimes a sign “tells” an already well-informed viewer something significant that is not stated directly.

Consider the establishment’s opening date.

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Signage & Signification (#8 in series: even more unappetising, in “translation”)

A surprisingly large number of Pakistani citizens have a good grasp of English; we enjoyed more than a few mutually-intelligible and rewarding conversations with complete strangers during our visit in 2024

Presumably, the proprietor of the pictured fruit juice stand does not have such a grasp!

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Signage & Signification (#7 in series: unappetising, in “translation”)

 

On 25 May 2024 I took the photo as we sped by the pictured billboard.

It was lunchtime in Kashgar – the “fabled” Silk Road city in western China, where it is known as “Kashi”.

Doubtless, before it was “translated” into English, the description of the soup was altogether more enticing.

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