Another overnight hop and we awoke on Tuesday 12 November at 8.00 am to find ourselves on the North African Coast in Melilla (Meleeya). Melilla is a Spanish enclave, military base, and free port on the northern coast of Morocco. The city is located on the eastern side of the Cabo Tres Forcas, a rocky peninsula that extends approximately 25 miles (40 km) into the Mediterranean Sea.

I really loved Melilla so this, and Valencia, have been my standouts so far. Wonderful restoration has been carried out on their ancient forts which overlook the ocean and fly the flag of Melilla. The shoreline is very rocky but we did finally see the beach as we neared the ship on our return. Spanish troops dug trenches at Beni Sikar, northwest of Melilla, during the Rif War. Colonized by the ancient Phoenicians (later Carthaginians) and Romans under the name of Rusaddir, it fell as a Berber town to Spain in 1497 and remained Spanish thereafter despite a long history of attack and siege. After acquiring the adjacent area in about 1909, Spain modernized Melilla’s port and made the town into a garrison post for Spanish Morocco. Melilla was the first Spanish town to rise against the Popular Front government in July 1936, thus helping precipitate the Spanish Civil War. It was retained by Spain as an exclave when Morocco attained independence in 1956. In 1995 the Spanish government approved statutes of autonomy for Melilla, replacing the city council with an assembly similar to those of Spain’s other autonomous communities.

Textiles, shoemaking, and local metallurgical manufactures are Melilla’s main industries. Services, including a growing tourism industry, contribute significantly to the economy. Two-thirds of the exclave’s population is Roman Catholic, while the remainder is mostly Muslim. Its area is 5 square miles (12 square km) with an estimated population in 2018 of 86,384.

In the modern city, the buildings have the same gentle rounded corners with wide avenues and parks that we have seen elsewhere, and the panorama of the city shows the layout and the lovely terracotta colours. It is also known for its spectacular modernist architecture, brought to Melilla at the beginning of the 20th century by the architect Enrique Nieto, a disciple of Gaudí. It is second only to Barcelona for its concentration of colourful modernist buildings.

The official language is Spanish, but many locals also speak French, Arabic, and the local Berber dialect. There are few English speakers in this part of Spain as it is well off the tourist route so it is a great place to come and be immersed in Spanish. As I had been brushing up on my Spanish for the previous four months, this was an opportunity to practise!

Relations with Morocco are strained and there is a double fence lined with razor wire surrounding the enclave to keep immigrants, mainly African refugees, from entering. We were told that children are smuggled through the fence unaccompanied, and become Spain's responsibility which puts a huge burden on their care facilities. Our guide said that this is the same problem in the UK behind the simplistic calls for British jobs for British workers – ‘if you treat migrants well, give them the kind of human rights Europeans demand for themselves, you only encourage them to keep coming’. So Melilla has become a kind of theatre, acting out the most intense human dramas which are calculated to send a message of deterrence to that great global audience of hopeful poor. The message is: "Don't be fooled by the wide avenues and beautiful fountains of this Spanish city. None of this is for you. Stay where you are, stay poor and, if you dare to try to come here, we'll hurt you. If you're really unlucky, we'll let you stay here and you'll have no way out, you'll just be trapped and hopeless, without any legal rights to call your own."

As I looked at the fence, I was filled with such sorrow that I felt as if my soul had been somehow assaulted. The indignity of ‘man’s inhumanity to man’ and the true poverty that exists so close to apparent wealth was heart-breaking and I suspect will remain with me forever.

It was another fairly short day as we sailed at 6.00 pm, to return to Spain.