Feeling Blue: Chefchaouen, Africa’s most eyecatching city.
Have you ever imagined a city where all part of it are colored in your favorite color? Yes, it does exist, and that city is located in the Northern part of Morocco and its called Chefchaouen (or Chaouen).
Chefchaouen has its own nickname which is the blue pearl and well… the city indeed live up to that nickname standard. So before I talk about all the instagram spots and what can you do in this “taken out from a story book” city, let’s start on how to get there shall we !
Real Life Smurf City?
How to get there:
To get there, there are basically 2 types of transportation available which is…(yeah you guess it) the bus or the train. Unexpectedly for a touristic city like this, they don’t have a train station(!), so you can take a train to the nearby city of Tangier then take a taxi or minibus to Chefchaouen. This is the most popular way to get there as Tangier itself is also worth a visit. It is a coastal city just next to Spain with beautiful beaches along the side of the road, people can cross to spain by ferry (45 minutes ride) to Granada (a city in Spain) and this is also the shooting sote for James Bond’s Spectre movie. Tangier is a 7 hour ride from Fez (the city where I stayed for my AIESEC project).
The second choice which is also the way that we used to reach Chaouen is by the Bus. So we misplanned our trip resulting in us visiting Tangier for our 1st weekend and Chefchaouen on the 2nd weekend while actually those 2 can be combined together for 1 weekend (3days 2nights). It was a 6 hour bus ride from Fez to Chefchaouen, but that duration can fluctuates depends on the traffic condition as we spend about 7+hours from our Fez-Chaouen bus ride while only around 5.5 hours for the return journey. Just a light warning, please book the ticket 3 or 4 days in advance as bus tickets to Chefchaouen tends to sold out quickly. CTM is the bus company that you should choose as it is the most well known company, other companies may have a cheaper ticket price but they tend to be more dirty in terms of the seats and cleanliness of the bus as well they’re not ad punctual as CTM.
Transportation choice for Chefchaouen:
1st choice (Train + Taxi) :
Fez – Tangier (+/- 6hours train ride) 145 DH 1st Class / 111 DH 2nd Class Rail tickets website
Tangier – Chefchaouen (+/- 1 hour taxi ride) 200 DH/ taxi
2nd choice (CTM Bus) :
Fez – Chefchaouen (+/ 6 hours) 100 DH Bus tickets website
What can you do in Chefchaouen:
Well finally after a bumpy bus ride… we finally arrived at Chefchaouen #yeah and… I can’t believe what my eyes were seeing. It is blue. Literally, every single thing is BLUE. From the stores, to the restaurants, to the hotel doors, to the villagers house, to even the most darkest alley wall it was painted blue. When i strolled around the medina, one thing came into my mind, “THIS IS AN INSTAGRAM CITY.”. Every single turn, every single passageway and alley is a good spot for travelers to spot a nice pic. The blue color feels warm in your eyes and well it translate to the photo that you took as the backdrop makes you look like you’re living in a real life smurf village. We (Harbie, Aryo, Larissa, Henriette, and Jeremy) walked around the city at around 4pm and it was so crowded with people and mostly they are Chinese tourist. When you walk around the small alleys you can meet numbers of kids playing around. Those kids were super friendly to us, 3 young boys even gave us a free breakdance show to watch! The Chaouen kids are generally super friendly and joining them for a game of football or a a short hide and seek is a good choice as it will be memorable for both you and the kids. But well returning to my previous point, it is too crowded during that time and not the best time to take pictures, so we went for a good pizza dinner and finish the night in a small bar.
On the next day, we woke up 7 in the morning, determined to get the good pictures (instaworthy pictures) and to watch the sunrise. As your parents said “early birds gets the worm”, this saying really applies here. The morning is completely different from the late afternoon, nobody was awake at that time and it feels like the city was ours. While enjoying the birds sound, we walked around the city and took lots of pictures! The more you explore, the more mesmerizing this city seems to be and yes, in every corner there is an instagram spot waiting for you there. The city is pretty small therefore half day should be enough for you to explore every single part of it.
Afterwards, we climbed up to a place called the Spanish mosque. This mosque is located at the top of a hill, the hill where tourist can have a bird eye view look to the whole Chefchaouen. The view from top is soi unique as sprinkles of blue on the buildings can be quite clearly seen even from the distance.
So there goes my post about one of the most eye catching city in the whole world.
