Bullfights, Camels and Tagines: Family Friendly Spain and Morocco

While Spain is well-known for its family friendly credentials, with a myriad of attractions especially designed for little ones, we – wrongly as it turns out – did worry our children might not enjoy Morocco as much. But, during a twin-centre trip which took us from west to east, we found we were all captivated by the cultural differences.

Last summer, we embarked on one of our longest holiday drives to date – taking in huge swathes of the Spanish coast, travelling from Girona down to La Manga in Murcia and then heading west to Andalucia. But, flying back out of Malaga, we didn’t make it quite so far as Seville – something we wanted rectify this time round by making it our first stop.

Seville

Renowned as one of the most vivacious cities in Spain, it is full of flair and passion, with narrow, windy streets, fashionable locals and breathtaking architecture. But Seville is also very child friendly. Fascinated by the heritage of bullfighting here, but not wanting to take our little ones along to experience a real-life bullfight, we booked ourselves onto a tour of the Plaza de Toros out of hours. Our two were enthralled and learned lots to tell all their school friends back home.

We also visited the less authentically Spanish Isla Magica, a huge theme park right in the centre of the city. It’s swelteringly hot, but there are plenty of water rides to cool us all down, including the Anaconda, where you get a guaranteed soaking. There’s lots on offer for our youngest too at the Fountain of Youth, dubbed the Isle of Children, where there are waterfalls and jumping springs youngsters can splash through. We stayed until the evening to watch the light shows and fireworks and the kids loved it.

It’s a spectacular end to our stay in Spain, as we headed by bus down to the port of Tarifa to catch a ferry across the Strait of Gibraltar to Tangier in the morning. As part of recent rejuvenation, a new modern port has been built about an hour outside Tangier, but we deliberately choose a ferry heading into the old port, to get us into the heart of the action straight away.

Tangier

While we’d probably just have crossed our fingers and gone off on our own if we were travelling as a couple, we hired a guide to make sure our children get the most of our time in Tangier, and to make sure we go to the most suitable places.

We find Moroccans are genuinely delighted to see a family with children visiting their country, although our little boy is a little perturbed because they’re very tactile and will often rub his hair as he passes by.

We opt for a private guide, because we don’t want our kids getting bored on a big organised trip and it was definitely the right thing. Forewarned that we were travelling with little ones, our guide tailored our day around our children. We headed into the ancient Medina – and we give the kids 100 dirhams – just under £10, to spend as they wish. Our eldest buys a new bag and some trinkets while our little one opts for a replica football shirt. After I’ve bought some olives to snack on and some spices to take home, we’re off again.

The highlight for our kids was definitely the camel ride, which certainly made a change from the donkey rides I remember as a child.

That night, we asked our riad for a restaurant recommendation with a kids’ menu and they suggest a few Italian options. But, given that we eat Italian so much at home, we head to Le Nebab, partly because they offer to meet us in the main square and guide us through the Medina so we don’t get lost. We have a traditional tagine with lamb and prunes. Our children, usually fussy eaters, tuck into chicken pastillas – a traditional Moroccan pastry dish – and even dip their bread into the tagine, as we make plans to come back to see more of Morocco. My partner can’t wait to try kitesurfing in Dakhla.

Katie is the baking and travel addicted blogger behind delightso.me where she writes about her adventures in cake and on foreign shores. You can follow Katie and Delightsome on Twitter @delightsomeblog.