Chefchaouen, The Blue City
Chefchouen is one of those places that is more than a detour on a trip as it’s not conveniently close to any of the major hubs where most plan their travel around, but boy oh boy it is worth the detour. When planning we debated over making it a day trip ourselves either by driving or doing a bus tour but instead decided to stay overnight in hopes of finding that special moments of calm once the hoards of tourists leave. That’s exactly what we found. Driving into the foothills along the winding roads you could start to see that chunck of blue nestled in… the blue city, where each year the town buys paint and brushes for the residents each year to keep the city living up to it’s namesake. Driving into the base of the “mountain” felt a little chaortic with people everywhere yelling at you to follow them, park here or there, but as Matt was weaving his way closer to our navigational marker where we knew we wanted to enter the medina to hike up to our hotel, a man jogged quietly beside us and then pointed down a side street. He, like many locals, had hoped we spoke fluent French vs. the parsed together words and phrases that both Matt and I know, so he yelled to one of his friends or relatives and suddenly here came someone who spoke enough English to tell us where to park, charge us our 40 Dirham for the night and then before you can protest grab part of your luggage to personally lead you to your hotel. Part of me was grateful as we wound our way up and up that this man knew where he was going, the other part was like “slow the hell down, I’m dying trying to keep up with you!”
Dar Kisinia was picture perfect and was nestled along the sides of a small square. We were served tea next to a small fireplace that was perfect as it was a bit rainy and chilly out. Our room was so nice with the windows opening out onto the square, a walk-in shower, and little couch and coffee table. The hotel had decorated a small desk with fake rose petals and a Happy Birthday banner for Matt which was very sweet. The only downside? A bed that felt like sleeping on a slab of concrete, but you get what you get…just hits a little harder at our age!
There were certainly way more residents than we were expecting. Lots of hills and stairs, but so uniquely beautiful. We just wandered and explored, Matt at the ready with his camera in hand. We grabbed dinner at a restaurant off the main square where the waiters wait out front practically begging you to stop for a drink or try to shove the menu at you.
I’m so glad we decided to spend the night and enjoy the town as the sun set and all the bus tourist left, with the following morning being even better lit by the morning light and nothing but quiet streets with the locals preparing for their day ahead. It was well worth feeling like you had the streets almost all to to yourself. An excellent morning before we were on the road again on our way to Fes.
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