Chefchaouen is a small town in the Rif Mountains of northern Morocco, famously painted in every shade of blue. Here is what to see and when to visit…
Chefchaouen sits at around 600 metres in the Rif Mountains of northern Morocco, and almost every building in its old town is painted some shade of blue. Walking up through it is unlike anywhere else in the country: the lanes are narrow and stepped, the walls are washed in cobalt and powder blue, and the mountains rise directly behind the roofline.
WHY IT IS BLUE
There is no single agreed explanation. One account traces it to Jewish refugees who settled here in the 1930s, for whom blue carried religious meaning. Another holds that the colour repels mosquitoes. A third, less romantic but probably closest to the truth, is that the blue became a tradition worth maintaining because visitors came to see it. Whatever the origin, the town repaints regularly, and the colour is genuinely part of daily life rather than a backdrop.
WHAT TO DO
The medina is small enough to cross in twenty minutes and interesting enough to spend a day in. Plaza Uta el-Hammam is the main square, overlooked by the reddish walls of the fifteenth-century kasbah, which contains a small museum and a garden. The Spanish Mosque, a half-hour walk up the hill outside the town, gives the classic view back over the blue roofs, and is the place to be at sunset.
Chefchaouen is a weaving town, and the wool blankets and rugs sold here are made locally rather than trucked in. Goat cheese from the surrounding hills is a regional speciality and appears on most menus.
For walkers, Talassemtane National Park begins just outside town, with trails through cedar and fir forest. The Akchour waterfalls and the rock formation known as God's Bridge are a popular half-day trip from the town.
WHEN TO GO
Spring and autumn are ideal. The Rif is greener and cooler than most of Morocco, and rain is more common here than in the south, particularly in winter. Summer is pleasant at this altitude but the medina gets busy.
GETTING THERE
Chefchaouen is in the far north, roughly 600 kilometres from Marrakech, so it is not a day trip. It sits most naturally in a northern itinerary alongside Fes, Tangier or Tetouan, and is usually reached by road from one of those. Give it at least one overnight stay — the town empties of day visitors in the late afternoon, and the hours around sunset are the best it has to offer.
