Top tipper: Andrea Kirkby/ Andreakkk
Each week we introduce you to a Been there tipper. This week it's Andrea Kirkby who has just got back from a spell in Morocco - but remains a Fen girl at heart.
If you'd like to tell the world about your travels drop us a line: been.there@guardian.co.uk
What were you doing in Morocco?
We spent three weeks in Morocco, travelling around, visiting the Imperial Cities first and then hiking around some of the southern oases.
What was your favourite aspect of the country?
The greenness of the country in spring, and the luminous colours. Even in the south, the palmeraies were full of leafy trees, alfafa, and reeds; in the north, forests and fertile fields shimmered in the breeze. Then the ochre or even rich red of the mountains; the dark green tiles of mosque roofs, and the incredibly blue sky.
And also the fruit juices - banana, avocado smoothies, orange juice from street stalls.
Was there anything about the country which surprised you or which you weren't expecting?
The night market at Zeida. This is a nothing town, not in any of the guidebooks and hardly anything to be found on Google, but it comes alive at night as the half-way coach stop between Fes/Meknes and Er-Rachidia. Amazing butchers' shops/restaurants, where you can have the meat sliced off the haunch and made into meatballs while your bus sits there for half an hour, and all lit up by glaring electric lights in the blackness.
Do you travel on your own a lot? Or ever in fact?
I do travel a lot on my own, though this time I was with my partner. I suppose I got started as a solo traveller in the year before I went to university and I've never looked back.
Where has been the most inspiring place you have visited?
Do you know, I can't answer that. But a place I go back to again and again though is the Fenland - for the bleakness and the huge skies.
What prompts you to visit a destination?
I used to know exactly what I wanted to see (Romanesque architecture for instance), and mark up the Blue Guide. Now, I'm going through a phase of visiting places I've never been before, trying to expand my horizons. I also have a fascination with pilgrimages - I've walked to Santiago, Canterbury and part of the way to Rome, so perhaps it's time for the big one - next year in Jerusalem?
What are your travel plans for the coming year? Any big trips organised?
Definitely India, which I haven't visited before. And I also plan to collect some more great Arab cities- Damascus and Cairo.
Who is the most beguiling character you've met on your travels?
Recently, 'The Father of the Cats', a distinguished gentleman in Meknes who feeds the street cats in the souk and spent a while chatting to us. And a cheerful nun in the cloister of Santi Quattro Coronati in Rome, who admitted she loved driving and was glad she was the only sister in her convent with a full license!
What is the point of travel for you?
I don't know. I just can't seem to manage without it.
Where is your favourite place for a meal?
My own kitchen - usually eating a recipe I've brought back from somewhere else.
Where do you live? What brought you there?!
I split my time between Norwich - England's greatest medieval city and home of some truly brilliant pubs - and France, where my partner has a farmhouse and my two cats catch an unfeasibly large number of rodents. Norwich has been home to my family for generations - oddly, my father decided to go and live in Ipswich, so I just reversed the process.
How old are you?
Young enough to stay up all night and old enough that I ought to know better.
Is there one place where you wish you never had to leave?
No. I'm always planning another trip.
Do you collect any travel souvenirs?
Recently, I seem to have been collecting kitchen equipment. I have a gorgeous wooden g'saa from Morocco - a huge bowl used for making bread - and some lovely olivewood spoons and spatulas from Tahtakale market in Istanbul.
I also have a bad habit of coming home with art works. I bought a huge oil painting at a gallery in Poland on a business trip once - it still hangs in my study but it was hell getting it back home.
Meet more of Been there's top tippers here and here
If you'd like to tell the world about your travels drop us a line: been.there@guardian.co.uk
What were you doing in Morocco?
We spent three weeks in Morocco, travelling around, visiting the Imperial Cities first and then hiking around some of the southern oases.
What was your favourite aspect of the country?
The greenness of the country in spring, and the luminous colours. Even in the south, the palmeraies were full of leafy trees, alfafa, and reeds; in the north, forests and fertile fields shimmered in the breeze. Then the ochre or even rich red of the mountains; the dark green tiles of mosque roofs, and the incredibly blue sky.
And also the fruit juices - banana, avocado smoothies, orange juice from street stalls.
Was there anything about the country which surprised you or which you weren't expecting?
The night market at Zeida. This is a nothing town, not in any of the guidebooks and hardly anything to be found on Google, but it comes alive at night as the half-way coach stop between Fes/Meknes and Er-Rachidia. Amazing butchers' shops/restaurants, where you can have the meat sliced off the haunch and made into meatballs while your bus sits there for half an hour, and all lit up by glaring electric lights in the blackness.
Do you travel on your own a lot? Or ever in fact?
I do travel a lot on my own, though this time I was with my partner. I suppose I got started as a solo traveller in the year before I went to university and I've never looked back.
Where has been the most inspiring place you have visited?
Do you know, I can't answer that. But a place I go back to again and again though is the Fenland - for the bleakness and the huge skies.
What prompts you to visit a destination?
I used to know exactly what I wanted to see (Romanesque architecture for instance), and mark up the Blue Guide. Now, I'm going through a phase of visiting places I've never been before, trying to expand my horizons. I also have a fascination with pilgrimages - I've walked to Santiago, Canterbury and part of the way to Rome, so perhaps it's time for the big one - next year in Jerusalem?
What are your travel plans for the coming year? Any big trips organised?
Definitely India, which I haven't visited before. And I also plan to collect some more great Arab cities- Damascus and Cairo.
Who is the most beguiling character you've met on your travels?
Recently, 'The Father of the Cats', a distinguished gentleman in Meknes who feeds the street cats in the souk and spent a while chatting to us. And a cheerful nun in the cloister of Santi Quattro Coronati in Rome, who admitted she loved driving and was glad she was the only sister in her convent with a full license!
What is the point of travel for you?
I don't know. I just can't seem to manage without it.
Where is your favourite place for a meal?
My own kitchen - usually eating a recipe I've brought back from somewhere else.
Where do you live? What brought you there?!
I split my time between Norwich - England's greatest medieval city and home of some truly brilliant pubs - and France, where my partner has a farmhouse and my two cats catch an unfeasibly large number of rodents. Norwich has been home to my family for generations - oddly, my father decided to go and live in Ipswich, so I just reversed the process.
How old are you?
Young enough to stay up all night and old enough that I ought to know better.
Is there one place where you wish you never had to leave?
No. I'm always planning another trip.
Do you collect any travel souvenirs?
Recently, I seem to have been collecting kitchen equipment. I have a gorgeous wooden g'saa from Morocco - a huge bowl used for making bread - and some lovely olivewood spoons and spatulas from Tahtakale market in Istanbul.
I also have a bad habit of coming home with art works. I bought a huge oil painting at a gallery in Poland on a business trip once - it still hangs in my study but it was hell getting it back home.
Meet more of Been there's top tippers here and here