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Blue Chefchaouen hangs on the mountainside at a height of half a kilometer. From far away, we still couldn’t distinguish its famous blueness, but walking through the alleys of Chaouen feels like walking in a dream, that’s how blue it is.
If you prefer to read in Finnish continue here / Jos luet mieluummin suomeksi, jatka tänne:
Chefchaouen – Marokon mystinen sininen helmi
The Rif region of Northern Morocco, where the famous blue city Chefchaouen is located, was once Spanish Morocco, conquered by Spain.
In contrast to the rest of Morocco, Spanish is spoken there in addition to Arabic, while elsewhere the second language is French.
Bus trip across the Atlas mountains
We jumped on the bus in Fès. There are no trains to Chefchaouen from there. So we had a four-hour bus ride through Northern Morocco, across the Atlas Mountains.
In Fès the station staff guided us almost by hand through the ticket office to the right platform and even showed us the right bus.
The bus tickets to the famous blue city Chefchaouen cost around 4.70 euros per person.
Photo by Ismo
The dreamy blue Medina of Chefchaouen
The landscapes on the way from Fès to Chefchaouen are mountainous and green, sometimes very handsome. The other passengers were Moroccan. After a few curves, the city emerged.
The bus station is located on the side of the new town and we had a walk ahead of us to our accommodation in the old town, the Medina.
Chefchaouen’s Medina is small, full of tiny boutiques, labyrinthine, very hilly, and – blue.
The city is not called the blue pearl of Morocco in vain, as most of the Medina’s houses and countless steps are painted a dazzling blue.
No one seems to know for sure why, but the main thing is that it is.
Tanja mentioned that she felt like she was walking in a dream when she was moving around the city.
Chaouen’s dreamlike atmosphere.
Don’t be stingy on heating
Our pre-booked small hotel *Casa Miguel was nice.
The friendly receptionist offered us heating for an extra fee, but we decided to save money and cope without it.
We realized that we had saved in the wrong place. It was March and the temperature dropped to zero outside at night. It wasn’t much warmer inside.
Even during the day, it hardly got above ten degrees.
We admit that we heated our room by keeping the hot water running a little longer than it took to take a shower.
The view from the roof terrace of our hotel.
In search of a lost wine cellar
After settling into our room, we went searching for a nice place to dine.
There were several restaurants on the edge of the Medina square, whose patrons offered a typical Moroccan tourist menu – a starter, a tagine stew for the main course, and a fruit for dessert.
The price would’ve been less than five euros, but we already knew from experience that there wouldn’t be much focus on taste – or even size – in the tourist versions.
We decided to try something else. Before that, we wanted to find a place to buy a bottle of red wine. We wanted to enjoy Moroccan wine in our attic room in the evening, preferably with food, of course.
It turned out that there is one place to buy wine in Chefchaouen – and it’s the only one.
Not only wine but a cozy restaurant for dining
On the new city side exists a restaurant called Oum Rabie, and all the waiters in the other restaurants know it. – We stopped asking in every restaurant on the way.
We were advised to move forward step by step and just when we thought we had reached the right place, we were advised to continue a little further.
Oum Rabie turned out to be so cozy that we decided to dine there too.
The takeaway bottle was tightly wrapped in a brown paper bag in the Moroccan way.
Although Morocco is a wine-producing country, drinking or even displaying wine in public is frowned upon.
Therefore, restaurants, bars, and nightclubs that serve alcohol keep a low profile and if there is a terrace, it is either behind the fence or on the roof.
Still, no one in Chefchaouen refused to tell a traveler where to get wine but were very helpful in advising how to find the place.
Wine is not the only agricultural product here to get wasted
Morocco, and Rif in particular, is also known for an agricultural product that is more notorious than wine, namely cannabis.
Spain is nearby, so the journey of the product to the end users is very short.
We had read horror stories online about how the cannabis farmers in the surrounding mountains had even shot hikers who accidentally got too close to the plantations and how the drug dealers in the city itself had run after tourists screaming in terror.
We didn’t come across that kind of behavior.
Though, one drug dealer did ask about our shopping preferences but he didn’t bother us once we said we weren’t interested.
There wasn’t any threatening atmosphere in the city, on the contrary, we met only hospitable people.
Tanja climbed a little higher to photograph the scenery from the roof terrace.
Photo by Ismo
Climb for the best views over blue Chefchaouen
The next day we climbed to the nearby mountains on a hiking trail also popular among the locals.
The views of the city, darkened by thunderclouds were downright dramatic from there. The sun was still shining warmly from behind the clouds, even though it had snowed on the surrounding peaks during the night.
We returned to the city and continued our walk around the medina.
In the narrow alleys lined with flower pots, children were playing football and tourists were searching local products for souvenirs.
We had been traveling for almost half a year carrying only small backpacks that couldn’t fit any souvenirs.
The man wearing a burnouse knows everything
The night was falling and we began to navigate the maze of stairs and alleys down the direction of Medina Square, again in search of a restaurant for dinner.
In front of a shop, an older man dressed in a traditional brown burnouse leaned on the railing and said hello.
We greeted him back and he started talking.
Of course, the man asked where we were from and told us he knew Helsinki.
He said that he was currently keeping an eye out for his friend’s shop while he was running some errands.
He complained that the uncertain world situation had driven tourists away from the blue pearl Chefchaouen as well.
Our hunger was growing unbearable.
We excused telling the man that we also needed to leave, only for dinner though.
“When you turn left at the next corner, you can go down the stairs to the square. And if you turn right, you’ll get straight to your hotel,” he kindly guided.
Both pieces of advice were correct.
We just hadn’t told him in which hotel we were staying.
This scenery is worth walking up a few steps!
Photo by Ismo
How to get to Blue City Chefchaouen
We made this trip in March 2017 and the route information is from that time.
Check the schedules according to the time of your trip.
Chefchaouen can be reached by bus both from Fes and near the border of Ceuta, which belongs to Spain.
From the European side, Ceuta is one-hour ferry ride from Algeciras, Spain.
CTM buses run from Fes to Chefchaouen. The station (gare routiere CTM) is located on Place Atlas.
We left Chefchaouen for Ceuta, but instead of the bus, we took a taxi for ease and time-saving.
After a short negotiation, the price came down to fifty euros. Considering the distance it was reasonable.
The taxi drove us smoothly and as agreed as close to Ceuta as possible.
We were left only a short walk across the border to the Spanish side.
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The most Instagrammed spot in Chefchaouen