It would appear that our holiday is going to consist of early starts. Well today was no different. We were up when it was still dark - something neither of us was expecting to be doing.

The information of the ferry website was incredibly confusing - which meant that we turned far too early - and sat contemplating a missed hour in bed!! The ferry trip itself was pretty uneventful - we passed the "Rock of Many Disputes" - but as the wind got up we headed inside to the isolation or our iPods.

Arriving in Ceuta and then finding Morocco can be interesting. We got ourselves "mis-placed", but being the whole place isn't huge it wasn't a problem. Next up though was the border into Morocco the stuff of nightmares - and with so many stories of scams and hassles not something we were looking forward to.

Firstly - apologies for the split infinitive. Secondly - no idea why their are so many bad stories. We pretty much sailed through. Arrive at control, exit car, get passport stamped and immigration stamp done, go to car import booth, get that done, drive to next man, get it checked and asked if carrying any pistols - he got me on that one - and then get the passports checked again. And then you are in Morocco - and chaos

We had decided that to get down to Larache we would eschew the motorways and use the N-road. The N-road followed the coast south and with the bright sun shining in we finally felt we were on holiday. A quick stop for cash, before we skirted Tetouan, and then back in land searching for our first junction!

Junctions can be notoriously badly signposted in Morocco - but being that we were looking for the junction of 2 N roads we hoped we stood a good to evens chance - and we were right. Dot on the right KMs we found the junction and headed down a great section of moroccan mountain road - even if I faced the embarassment of being passed by a 7.5ton truck!!! The road would lead us straight into Larache.

That was the theory!! It did, just not in the place we thought it would. But Prisca picked up where we were without a problem - and sure enough we found the Place de Liberation - a parking spot - and an ever helpful and friendly parking attendent.

We hoped to get our stuff straight into a Hotel - but with no answer from the door - we sat on the Place for lunch. We chose a locals favourite - fried mixed fish (fish, prawns, calamari), with frites, a small bean stew, tomato salsa and 2 coca-colas - 9CHF. Unfortunately they are in the middle of redesigning the Place - as were were later to find out it seems to be something which is does every few years.

We headed back to the Hotel - and managed to book in. We stayed in La Maison Haute a friendly old house run by Hassan - who grew up in the house - and staffed by his daughter. His home is your home.

Once installed, we headed onto the fabulous roof terrace and settled into holiday mode - which means reading, relaxing - and hand feeding the pet Tortoises - even if the mother looked more tempted by a nice big bite of Swiss flesh!! The evening was a mix of wholesome home cooked food and viewing of photographs from Hassan (showing the history of Larache).