Charming Chefchaouen

October 1-3, 2024

I wrote charming because....well....it rhymed.  But more than charming I would say Chefchaouen is mesmerizing, or at least the medina or old town is.  The entire medina is awash in vibrant blue colors that captures your attention and holds it as you round every corner.  

Chefchaouen, or Chaouen as most of the locals call it, is a city in the Rif Mountains of northwest Morocco.  It lies about 60 kilometers south of the Tetouan airport.  The city's name means "Look at the Horns" referring to the two mountains that serve as the backdrop to the city. 

The first question that most people have is why was the entire city painted blue in the first place?  There are a lot of theories, but we have it from a reliable source that there are actually multiple reasons for the blue hue. 

First, it was where the Jewish inhabitants went to live.  Many Jews had fled persecution in Spain and elsewhere in Europe and found asylum in northern Morocco.  Many of those Jews made their way to Chefchaouen and settled in certain areas of the medina.  Given the significance of blue in the Judaism the local inhabitants painted their walls that color.  

Second, it seems that the town residents, both Jewish and Muslim, realized that the blue color was a detractant for the mosquitos that plagued the area and was thus a favorite color to paint their abodes. 

Finally, many believe that as local residents (and the local government) saw that the blue houses attracted tourists, other non Jewish townsfolk began to paint their houses blue as well. I don't know about the mosquito deterent, but I definitely know it attracts tourists, like us!

We stayed in a quirky apartment in the medina that was part of a guest house called Dar Touijar. It had 4 floors and a roof deck and had cute qualities of a Hobbit house.

We spent our first day wandering the medina, exploring the shops and some of the attractions like the main town square Uta al-Hamman and it's cool-looking, but not so exciting Kasbah. 

A note on the Kasbah. The offical adult price is 80 dirhams (about $8) which may not sound like a lot, but honestly there is not much to see inside and a lot of it is closed off - at least it was when we visited. There is a small garden, a tower with some decent views and a small museum that has explanations in Arabic and French, but no English.  You can try to haggle, as we did, and maybe get a discount, but unlike the craftspeople, the museum ticket taker seemed more inclined to let us leave then make the "sale".  It is our understanding that if you are with an official tour, you only pay 30 dirhams and it may be worth it in that case as you would get a lot of the history explained. 

To save money we mostly ate at small local restaurants just outside the medina - a favorite was a chain restaurant called Chez Aziz located just outside of one of the medina gates.  But we also splurged on New York Times touted eatery called the Clock Cafe.  The food an ambiance were very good, but you pay American prices for it.  The place is a self proclaimed "cross-cultural cafe", but the cultures that are crossing seem to be American, UK and German. 

On our second and last day, having exhausted the charms of the medina, and having a desire to escape the tourist "Disneyland" to see how the average Moroccan in Chefchaouen lives, we spent some time in the "new city".  We wandered the streets, explored the markets, ate at local restaurants (with local prices!) and found some quirky nightime entertainment for the kids. 

All in all, Chefchaouen is definitely worth the visit, at least to revel in the bluness of it all, but you probably won't need more than a day or two to see and do everything worth seeing and doing.