Chefchaouen is known as the blue city in Morocco and is a must see stop on any tour of Morocco. It is not a large city, but based on Tons reaction it is the most beautiful city in Morocco.
Each day when we return to François, Ton spends a great deal of time reviewing the pictures she took for the day. She is very thorough in her reviews and picky about the pictures she sends me to include in the blog. Most days she spends more time picking the pictures than I do writing the blog.
I can tell how much she liked a place by how many pictures she sends me. Today I received over 40 pictures, which means she enjoyed herself. Chefchaouen is a special place.
There are several stories about why the city became blue, one is that the Jews who arrived after they were expelled from Spain in the 1600’s painted their quarter of the town blue to distinguish it from the moslem sections, and eventually the entire town adopted it. The most common story is that the residents painted the walls blue because they believed it kept flys and mosquitos away.
The least romantic story is that the city administration ordered that all of the walls in the city be painted blue in the 1970’s to attract tourism. Whichever story you believe the effect is fantastic. A nice but not historically important or architecturally interesting city has been transformed into a magical place.
The residents of the city have taken the concept and enhanced it by tastefully decorating the walls with art, and displaying their wares for sale to enhance the color. It is not just that the walls are painted blue, but that around every corner is another delight for the eyes based on what is being sold.
The town was busy, but not overwhelming which is always a plus for us. It is fun to people watch when there are not too many people to watch.
The atmosphere was decidedly more laid back than Fez or Marrakech. While we had a few people approach us to try to sell us something, they backed off immediately when you told them no thanks. So there was no pressure.
The other interesting thing was that Spanish was the European language used by the locals instead of French. From 1920 to 1956 Morocco was split between the French and the Spanish. This part of Morocco was Spanish so the non-Arabic names for places were generally Spanish and the roads were Calle instead of Rue.
Chefchaouen is a relatively new city as it was established in 1471 by a mix of Berbers and the first wave of Moors who had been expelled by Spain. It was set up as a fortress to protect the interior of Morocco during a war with Portugal.
After spending a couple of hours walking around town we decided it was time to eat. Ton made me pick a place to eat from a list of 11 restaurants. The place that looked most interesting to me specialized in Tangines, so I was a little reluctant to suggest it. Our experience with Tangines has been underwhelming. None of them have been bad, but all but one of them has been mediocre.
But Sofia restaurant turned the tide. Tons Lemon Chicken Tangine was delicious, and since it was Friday I ordered the Lamb CousCous which was also delicious. Soria has won us over to what a good Tangine can be like.
After the meal we decided to take a taxi back to the campground. The campground is close to the center horizontally, but it about 500 feet above the town vertically. There is a staircase down the hill which we walked down in the morning, but we decided we would spend the 20 dirham for a taxi to go back. It was $2 well spent.
