The Blue City of Chefchaouen

Hi Everyone,

This is our long overdue Blog Post on our time in Chefchaouen in Morocco. We found it quite challenging to keep up with the blog while in Morocco. We are now in England and we are taking the time to get caught up on our journey as it really has been a fantastic experience that we look forward to sharing with you……….

The next morning, we packed up once again (this was made easy by having a vehicle in which to put our baggage) and started our long journey (7 hours) to Chefchaouen — known as the “Blue City” or “The Blue Pearl” — in northern Morocco. [“There are several different explanations for why Chefchaouen is blue. One story says that the immigrant Sephardic Jewish community brought with them a tradition of painting buildings blue because it reminded them of the sky and the presence of God. A different version of the story attributes the blue to the Jewish community, but this time to Jews who arrived in Morocco fleeing Hitler’s incursion through Europe. A third—radically different—version says that Chefchaouen became the blue city in Morocco in an effort to repel mosquitoes and prevent malaria.” — The Reality of Chefchaouen–Morocco’s Blue City By Author Laura Longwell].

We took the autoroutes which have the best and fastest roads to ensure that we would get to our destination well before dark. The trip went surprisingly well although there were a few things that were unclear such as which entrance and exit we should use for the toll roads. On one occasion we found ourselves in the wrong lane and had a huge truck behind us — it had to back in order to let us get into the correct lane for cars. The last third of the trip was along smaller roads that wound their way up into the Rif Mountains. The scenery became very green and hilly, markedly different from the land that we had seen in the south, which was flatter, dryer and more barren.

There is a lot of guesswork in driving here but we managed to get to Chefchaouen. We stopped at a viewpoint before we got into the city and could see the beauty of the “Blue City” perched high up on the hill.

Getting into the city’s Medina was a challenge as the streets were windy, narrow, steep and full of traffic. How Chris managed it I don’t know especially after driving for 7 hours from Oualidia! Here was one place Google Maps didn’t work and we found ourselves high above the city. Luckily, I was able to get a specific readily accessible destination from our Guesthouse host and we headed toward there. As we got to the old city gates a guy approached us about parking and led us to a spot where we could leave our car. Luckily Moroccans have excellent skills for guiding cars into very small spaces!!!

The first evening we found a restaurant recommended by Najat, the very bubbly manager of Dar El Fanne Guesthouse. It was called the Sophia Cafe and was run by two sisters. It was an outdoor cafe and was very simple but the traditional Moroccan food was delicious ….. we discovered over our days in Chefchaouen that it was a popular spot! The streets of the Blue City are a bit of a maze, but after leaving Sophia Cafe we eventually found our way ‘home’ and had our first night in our beautiful Guesthouse.

Each morning we had breakfast on the terrace on the top floor. Our fitness program continued!! On our first morning we were greeted by a blanket of fog near the city and were able to watch it encroach Chefchaouen. It was beautiful. Dana had already been up early to wander in the streets with her camera at dawn. It is such a beautiful place with almost everything painted some shade of blue.

We loved our Guesthouse, the Dar El Fanne. It was so perfectly decorated in Chefchaouen style.

Chefchaouen has become a major tourist spot but luckily February is relatively low season for them. I cannot imagine what it will be like in March or April or the summer when it is warmer.

Most of our time in Chefchaouen was spent wandering around the streets of the old city. There were so many alleys to see and on the last day we still were discovering areas that we had not seen before. Here are some photos of that we took over the days

The doors in Chefchaouen were beautiful!

One of the beautiful stairways in Chefchaouen.

Often the alleys and stairs are decorated with plants.

On our first full day in Chefchaouen we found a small street market just near to the nearby Medina gate so we found a place to sit and watch the action. We were sad to discover that it does not happen every day as this was the only time it took place before we continued our journey. Here is a photo I took of the women.

The old city had a lot of tourist shops with rugs and leather goods, typical tourist clothing, decorative ceramic tiles and fridge magnets and other knick-knacks. As we were the beginning of our trip we weren’t very interested in looking at their wares. Not too far away from our Guest House was a main square that we often visited as it was where most of the restaurants were located as well as the main mosque. It was a great place to hang out and people-watch. There definitely were some interesting characters there.

In front of the restaurants, young men whose job it was to entice people to eat at the restaurants endlessly approached passers-by encouraging them to stop in their particular restaurant. In the quiet times, some of them would entertain themselves by spinning a menu on one finger in a very skillful way. We enjoyed watching them!.

Our favourite restaurant there was called Bilmos and it had really great food! We had a tagine of seven different vegetables, which we still fondly remember from time to time as it was so delicious. Often meals in Morocco are started with free offerings of bread, olives both green and black and various spreads that were yummy.

Watching the mosque was interesting, especially during prayer times. Of course as non-Muslims we were not allowed to enter the mosque. Dana often looked out for the women who came to pray but had to enter through a small side entrance to do so, while the men entered the main front entrance. Hearing the call to prayer five times a day was quickly becoming a normal experience for us. Witnessing their devotion to their spiritual practice as they stop whatever they are doing to pray moved us greatly and was very powerful and inspiring for both of us.

On our second day there, we decided to walk up to the Spanish Mosque which overlooks Chefchaouen. It was built by the Spanish, but actually never was used as a mosque. On the way, we passed by a little bridge and surprisingly there were peacocks standing on the side of the bridge. Next, there was an area near a little waterfall that had all sorts of stalls selling fresh juices, fruit and other things.

We noticed that there were several women washing clothes in the water from the waterfall. Dana wanted to photograph them, but they were not open to that. One of them, however, invited Dana to try washing clothes in the traditional way. The water was freezing cold and I could not imagine having my hands in it for an hour or more!

Washing at the cloths at the opensided laundry area.

After that, we noticed there was a lovely little outdoor shop just up from the wash-house. The shop-keeper was selling fresh juice, so we decided to try our first glass of fresh pomegranate juice. It was amazing! Pomegranates were just coming into season in Morocco. It was really lovely just to hang out there sitting on our little cushions and watch all that was going on in the area. The man who was making the juice had such an expressive face.

From there, we started to walk up a well-worn stone path to the Spanish Mosque. Along the way were quite a few people selling their wares hoping to make a sale or two. The higher we climbed, there better the views of Chefchaouen became. Chris, as always, was keen to see the rocks in the area. Once we got to the mosque, it got quite windy. The door into the Spanish Mosque was locked so we didn’t get a chance to see inside but we were glad to have done the walk up to it.

It was in Chefchaouen that we first encountered tourists having their photos taken in the streets. These tourists were totally dressed either in their own cultural clothing from other countries or up “to the nines”, both of which were totally out of place in this setting. Sometimes people actually had their own photographers taking glamourous shots of them as they walked through the streets. It all seemed a bit crazy to us! Chefchaouen was just a backdrop for their own photos. No doubt the pictures were quickly loaded onto social media! These were the first of many such occasions on which we encountered this kind of activity in Morocco.

Dana had been hopeful of taking many photographs of local people in the beautiful blue alley ways, but in actuality most local people were not open to being photographed. Often I would take images of people as they were walking away, which captured the feeling of the photo but not their faces.

Man in a djellaba, which is the local clothing often worn in Morocco.

An elderly woman making her way up one of the steep streets.

The one subject that was super easy to photograph was cats in the city, especially in the Medina area. One of the sweet things that we discovered was that even though many of the cats did not have owners, the local people made sure that the cats had enough to eat. Many of the cats looked quite healthy but there were some that looked worse for wear. Quite often during our time in Morocco we would see the cats being fed. There are so many ways in which we experienced the kindness of the Moroccan people and this was definitely one of them.

We passed by this man who had a disability, and we left some money for him. It was very touching to see how tenderly he held this cat.

These cats were sleeping on the back of a motorcycle parked by a house. It was a perfect place for a snooze!

Another thing we noticed in the Medina was the eye for beauty that many of the local people had. This often resulted in, amongst other things, beautifully decorated orange juice stalls. Other locals created areas for tourists to pay a few dirhams (Moroccan currency) to have their photographs taken there.

Who wouldn’t want to buy an orange juice?

In the last few days of our time in the city we discovered a wonderful little shop where there were freshly squeezed orange juice and other treats. Again it was set up so invitingly. The man running it spoke English pretty well so we had a lovely conversation with him about his family and his work as an author and his need to generate a living by running his little shop. It is really lovely to have all these connections with the local people.

There was a coffee stall just outside the South Gate of the Medina — we usually went there once a day (or more often) to just sit and enjoy watching the comings and goings of people in and out of the Medina. Across the way from us, there were some steps where older men would often sit for long times in the afternoon. On the last day, three of them were sitting together — I approached them about taking a photo of them and, for a few dirhams, they were happy to let me.

At our last meal at Bilmos we ended up sitting beside a family from Belgium and striking up a lovely conversation. They had a 3 year old son who was just a delight to watch and experience. Yassine, the Dad, was born of Moroccan parents but had grown up in Belgium. It was very interesting talking with them.

We had our last breakfast on the roof and soon would be heading south to our next destination, Fez.

We were sad to say goodbye to Najat, so it is great to have a photo of her and Dana.

The last thing we had to do was to get our car successfully out of its very tight parking spot, Magically a parking man showed up and guided Chris safely out of the spot and onto the street. We decided to take the more scenic route to Fez so that we could have more of an experience of the Rif Mountains. We look forward to sharing that part of our journey with you soon. Dana and Chris

Portugal and Morocco Through Our Eyes