Chefchaouen
A blue medina in the Rif, on the road between Fes and Tangier
- When to go
- October 19° · 8 rainy days
- Per day
- €€price 2 of 5
- How many days
- 2days
- For you
- 6 questions →
- Nearest airport
- 48 km Tétouan · 86 km Tangier
- Right now
Chefchaouen is a two-night stop: a day for the blue medina and the hill with the Spanish Mosque, another for the trails around Akchour. It's a town of about 46,000 people at 564 metres in the Rif mountains, with no railway, so you arrive by bus on the way between Fes and Tangier.
The CTM bus from Fes takes a little over four hours, from Tangier about two and a half. That makes Chefchaouen a stop between the two rather than a trip from Marrakech, from where the way runs through Fes.
The Ras el-Ma spring, just east of the medina, divides the town from the hill: you follow it up to the Spanish Mosque and back down into the lanes. The mosque is on the eastern side, so walk the medina in the morning and leave the hill for the end of the day, when the western sun falls on the blue walls below.
What to see in Chefchaouen
The blue medina
The old quarter is walked on foot, aimlessly, in half a day. The lanes are emptiest early in the morning, which is also when they're easiest to photograph.
The Spanish Mosque
A disused mosque the Spanish built in the 1920s on the hill east of town. From the Ras el-Ma spring it's a twenty- to thirty-minute walk uphill, and from the top you see the whole blue medina at once.
The kasbah and Uta el-Hammam
A rammed-earth fortress with ten towers in the middle of the main square, with a garden and a small ethnographic museum. The main tower shows you the medina rooftops close up — a different angle from the Spanish Mosque.
Akchour and Talassemtane
A village thirty kilometres by road towards Oued Laou and the way into Talassemtane national park, with walking trails along the river. Allow a full day and proper shoes.
Two things you probably did not know
Chefchaouen has only been blue since the twentieth century. Explanations range from Jewish refugees who brought the colour in the thirties, to a belief that blue keeps mosquitoes off, to it cooling the walls; none is the single answer.
The town was founded in 1471 as a stronghold against the Portuguese. Christians were barred from entering until 1920, making Chefchaouen one of the last closed places in Morocco.
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