Melilla – a Piece of Spain in North Africa

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After leaving Marrakesh we popped over to the EU for the first time in more than four months by taking a train to Melilla, on the northern coast of Morocco.
We stayed in the African continent but had a short visit to the EU. Yes, that’s actually possible in North Africa.

Prefer to read in Finnish? Continue here / Luetko mieluummin suomeksi? Jatka tästä.

The Spanish conquered Melilla

It was at the end of the 1400s, under the rule of Queen Isabella I and King Ferdinand V, that the Castilian-Aragonese Kingdom started its “Reconquista”, the Spanish Reconquest.
This refers to a period where Spain conquered back areas from the Arabs, known as the Moors. 

The conquerors brought with them a very narrow-minded version of Catholicism, strengthened by the Spanish Inquisition. This led to, for example, large groups of Jewish people escaping to the Muslim areas of Istanbul and elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire and to North Africa.
But, that’s a story for another day.

After Granada surrendered to the Castilian forces in 1492 the work was practically done, but the Spanish didn’t leave it at that. They continued their conquering of the African continent. 

In 1497 the troops showed up in Melilla, a coastal city protected by an impressive fortress.
Melilla was part of the kingdom of Fez, located in modern-day Morocco.
Despite its good defense position, the city surrendered practically without a fight and has since then been a Spanish enclave. 

Even though there was no fighting in Melilla 500 years ago, afterward there have been plenty of wars.
However, in the 1920s the Berbers, who opposed the Spaniards occupying Northern Morocco during the Rif War, reportedly left the city unoccupied just to save its civilian population.

A piece of Spain on the coast of Morocco

Today Melilla and Ceuta, another Spanish enclave, are autonomous tax-free Spanish zones within the area of Morocco. 

Both have ferry connections to the motherland. We actually ended up returning back to Europe later on from Ceuta.
The ferry trip to Algeciras in continental Spain takes an hour.

In addition to these two enclaves, Spain holds onto three smaller areas in Africa on and off the Mediterranean coast of Morocco.

In Melilla, nearly 90 000 residents are packed onto an area of 13 square kilometers. Most of the residents are Catholic Spaniards, but there are also Berber, Jewish, and Hindu minorities living in the area.

Morocco’s national railroad doesn’t obviously reach all the way to Melilla – especially not because Morocco is officially requesting for the area to be rejoined with the rest of Morocco.

Both Melilla and Ceuta are high-demand destinations for those hoping to migrate from Africa to Europe: When you reach them, you are already in the EU.
Therefore the border control is strict and the frontiers are protected by high fences. Then again, this has not managed to prevent the most determined arrivals.

So you certainly can’t arrive in the area by train.
The closest train station is named Beni Ansar, from where you need to walk a couple of kilometers to the border of Melilla. You can also take a taxi.

With an EU passport crossing the border into Spain is a walk in the park. However, you first need to exit the Moroccan side.

This is usually not an issue, but we ended up getting questioned due to our profession.
Three men spent 30 minutes asking us what we had done in Morocco. We told them we were just visiting as tourists, even if we were journalists by profession.

Finally, the leader of the group walked up to his filing cabinet and searched for something in the drawers. 
Not torture devices, thankfully, but immigration forms.
He handed us a bunch of them and said with a slight smirk,
“Now you have them ready for your return.” 

Melilla old town is for visiting museums

Crossing the EU border and seeing a large EU sign felt like a homecoming, even if just a temporary one. 

The border is located a bit further from the center, so we started putting one hiking boot in front of the other.
We were surprised by how right after crossing the border you could even smell Spain in the air.

Without knowing much about the city we headed directly to the old town, Melilla la Vieja, which is located within the fortress on the hill.
We were hoping to find a nice breakfast cafe. 

For that the old town was not a good choice after all.
It’s definitely still worth visiting though – the number one destination in the city. The views from the fortress are impressive and the old town is full of museums that are free to enter.

There is a history museum that covers the area’s multifaceted history and the army museum inside the fortress proudly explains the various phases of the Melilla Marine Corps, founded in 1947.
Cafes, on the other hand, are hard to find.

Outside of the army museum there is a sign reminiscing fondly about the fascist rebellion of 1936.
At the start of the civil war Melilla was the first place in Spain where the army rose against the government.

The city is also home to one of the last, if not the last, publicly displayed statue of dictator Franco.
Then again, along with Ceuta, modern-day Melilla was the first place in Spain that made the Eid al-Alha celebration of the Muslims an official holiday. The city has also received kudos for its inclusive approach to multiculturalism.

Eating tapas surrounded by art nouveau scenery

From the old town we descended to the new downtown in search of our now quite late breakfast.
But the new town is not that new either.
In fact, the new town mainly consists of art nouveau buildings, similar to what you see in Barcelona.

The downtown is small and easily walkable.
After a brief tour we sat down on the terrace of a cafe and ordered coffee and breakfast sandwiches.

Our plan was just to spend the day in Melilla, but as we researched our return trip options online, we figured out that we would need to spend the night in the city.

Oh yes, we could use our cheap EU data plans. We crossed the street and sat in the nearest bar, called EntreVinos.
We ordered a glass of red wine – this was Spain after all – and started to look online for a place to sleep.

Melilla’s tax free status was evident in our bill and we were ecstatic over the two euro glasses of rioja.
– Also because of its taste. 

We ended up choosing a hotel in the center, the clean but already slightly worn out *Hotel Anfora with its 60s-style decor. The 60 euro price included breakfast and fine views over the fortress.

At night we came back to the same bar to enjoy some tapas.
The waiter remembered us and the wines we had ordered during the day, and brought us the same drinks again.
We received one set of tapas in our table before we had even decided what to order.

From the bill, we could see that these first wines and the first tapas were free of charge.

Melilla is easy to reach piece of Europe in North Africa

We finally ended up spending a couple of days in the city. The atmosphere was pleasant and quite frankly it felt relaxing and homey to be on European territory after a long while.

Besides visiting Indonesia and Morocco, we spent 2.5 months in Australia and New Zealand. We enjoyed our time in all of these places.
We’d also spent a few hours in New Caledonia’s capital Noumea. While this pleasant island group belongs to France, the atmosphere was more Polynesian than European.

Melilla is a nice and charming weekend destination and is even decently priced.
Besides from Morocco, you can reach it by taking a passenger ferry or a flight from several cities in continental Spain – Malaga for example.
People in restaurants and cafes don’t much speak English, so it’s good to learn a few words of Spanish before the trip.

The police is a friend & back to Morocco

After Melilla, our plan was to return to Morocco to explore the wonders of the country’s northern areas.
Crossing the border the second time was fairly straightforward.

We noticed on the map that there was also a train station right next to Melilla, so we were hoping that we wouldn’t have to trek all the way back to Beni Ansar.

We left early to look for the train station but after wandering around for a while, we realized it was just a cargo station.
It was also surrounded by fences, similar to Melilla.
We weren’t about to try to climb over them.

Time was running out, so we started looking for a taxi. Of course, none were around, but we did see a police officer standing on the street.

He asked us whether we were worried about something.
We told him that we needed to rush to catch our train.
Right away the police stopped a van that was driving past us and told the driver to take us to the train station.

Luckily the driver didn’t mind the order and was happy to obey. We naturally offered to pay him, but he refused.
We made it to the train perfectly fine and could thus start our trip toward Fès.

Our other articles about Morocco include posts from Chefchaouen, Fès, and Marrakesh.
Unfortunately, those are available only in Finnish atm, but there will be more posts and translations in English coming in the future.

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Translated from the original text Melilla on pala Espanjaa Pohjois-Afrikassa by Mirva Lempiäinen

Mirva is a US-educated travel writer from Finland living in the French Caribbean. 
Her blog is at Guadeloupeguide.com.