Chefchaouen Medina — The Blue Old Town

Nobody agrees fully on why the walls are blue. Some say Jewish refugees who arrived in the 1930s brought the custom; others say the lime-blue wash keeps mosquitoes away or simply keeps homes cool. Whatever the truth, residents still repaint every year, so the color stays vivid.

Almost everyone enters the medina chefchaouen through Bab el Ain, the small main gate on the western side. Once you pass under it, the streets narrow and turn blue within a few steps.

• Orient by going up: the medina climbs east toward the mountains — uphill leads to Ras el Ma, downhill back to the gate
• The main square is close: five minutes uphill from Bab el Ain brings you to the heart of it
• Wear real shoes: the lanes are cobbled, steep in places, and slick after rain

Bab el Ain is the gate almost every visitor walks through first. It stands on the western side of the old walls, where the medina meets the new town, and it is the natural crossing point between the two halves of Chefchaouen. The name means 'gate of the spring', a reference to the water sources that once fed the town from the hillside above.

It is a modest gate compared with the monumental ones in Fes or Meknes — a single horseshoe arch in a whitewashed wall, a short tunnel of shade underneath, and a knot of shops, juice stalls and cafés on either side. Grand taxis, the buses from Tetouan and Tangier, and the parking areas all sit downhill from here along Avenue Hassan II, so if you arrive with luggage this is where the car stops and the walking starts.

Once through the arch the lane climbs east. Follow it and you reach Place Outa el Hammam in about five minutes; keep going uphill and you eventually come out at Ras el Ma on the far edge. The medina has other gates — Bab el Souk to the north, Bab Onsar near the water — but Bab el Ain is the one to fix in your memory.

Orientation tip: the medina is a bowl on a slope. Whenever you feel properly lost, walk downhill and west until you hit the outer wall, then follow it round until the gate appears. It works better than a map app, which struggles with lanes this narrow.

Place Outa el Hammam is the beating heart of the old town and the one spot you'll pass through again and again. It's a broad, tree-shaded square lined with cafés where you can nurse a mint tea and watch the whole medina drift by. Outa el Hammam Chefchaouen is where locals meet, kids play, and tour groups regroup.

Two landmarks anchor the square:

• The Kasbah — a red-walled 15th-century fortress with a quiet garden courtyard, a small ethnographic museum, and a tower worth climbing for rooftop views over the blue roofs
• The Grand Mosque — recognizable by its unusual octagonal minaret, an architectural rarity in Morocco (the interior is for worshippers only, but the exterior is striking)

Grab a table on the square in late afternoon. The light softens, the cafés fill, and it's the most relaxed way to feel the rhythm of the place.

The blue streets of Chefchaouen are the reason most people come, and a few alleys stand above the rest. Derb el Assri — sometimes signposted as Callejon el Asri — is the single most photographed lane in town: a stepped alley draped in potted plants, blue on blue on blue, with a doorway that glows at the top. Around it, the *callejones* (little side lanes) branch off in every direction, each one a fresh composition.

Photo tips from people who shoot here often:

• Go early — arrive before 8am and you'll have Derb el Assri almost to yourself; by 10am it's a queue
• Overcast is your friend — soft cloud light spreads evenly and deepens the blue; harsh midday sun blows it out
• Look up and down — the best frames are often the staircases and the plant-framed doorways, not eye level
• Be considerate — many of these are people's front steps; ask before photographing residents, and don't block doorways

Derb el Assri is the blue stepped alley you have already seen a hundred times online: a narrow flight of stairs banked with painted flowerpots, walls washed in three or four shades of blue, and a small doorway at the top. It sits in the upper part of the medina, a few minutes uphill from Place Outa el Hammam, and locals will point the way if you ask for 'Callejon el Asri'.

Timing matters more than anything else here. The alley is barely two metres wide, so ten people already make a crowd.
• Before 8 am — quiet, soft light, and the plants still wet from watering
• 10 am to 4 pm — a queue of photographers taking turns on the steps
• Late afternoon — it thins out again, though the alley falls into shade early

Remember what you are standing on. These stairs are somebody's front door and the flowerpots belong to the households who water them. Keep your voice down, don't sit on the steps in the middle of the day when people need to get past, ask before photographing anyone, and if a resident says no to a picture, that is the end of it. A shopkeeper or a family may ask for a small tip if you set up a full photo shoot on their steps — either pay it or move on; arguing in the street helps nobody.

If you have a car and want to see the town from the outside, drive south to Derdara, the village and road junction about ten kilometres down the valley where the road divides toward Ouezzane and Fes. It isn't a sight in itself — a roadside cluster of cafés, a small market and a fuel stop — but the approach gives you one of the best wide views of Chefchaouen stacked against the mountain, and it is the point every bus and grand taxi from the south passes on the way in and out.

Follow the medina uphill to its eastern edge and the lanes open onto Ras el Ma ('head of the water') — a small stream and waterfall tumbling down from the mountains. This is where the old town meets the countryside, and it's one of the few spots where you'll see everyday life still going on: women bring rugs and blankets here to wash them in the cold running water, just as they have for generations.

Ras el Ma Chefchaouen is worth the climb for a few reasons:

• The cafés — a handful of simple terraces sit right over the stream, perfect for a tea with your feet near the water
• The trailhead — the path up to the Spanish Mosque viewpoint starts right here; it's a 30-minute climb to the best sunset over the blue city
• The cool air — on a hot afternoon the water and shade make this the freshest corner of the medina

It's unpolished and real — a good antidote if the photogenic alleys start to feel like a film set.

The medina's little shops are half the pleasure of wandering. Chefchaouen is a mountain wool town, so the standouts are woven goods — thick striped blankets, throws and rugs in the Rif style, often made a short drive away. You'll also find genuinely local things worth carrying home:

• Natural soaps and argan oil — Chefchaouen has a strong cottage industry in olive-oil soap, herbal blends and cosmetics
• Wool blankets and djellabas — look for the hooded mountain wool cloaks; quality varies, so feel the weight
• Leather goods — bags, slippers (babouches) and small items, usually a better price than in Fes
• Painted pottery — colorful, cheap and easy to pack

Bargaining is normal but gentle here — Chefchaouen is more relaxed than the big-city souks. Start friendly, settle somewhere fair, and you'll both leave happy. Shops cluster densely around Place Outa el Hammam and along the main lanes between the gate and the square.

A day in the medina is more tiring than it looks — all those steps add up, and the sun is strong at altitude. When your legs have had enough of the blue stairways, the nicest way to close the day is a proper wind-down.

That's where Chefchaouen Spa comes in. Rated 4.9/5 (TripAdvisor) and home to Morocco's only sensory-deprivation float center, it's a short step from the old town and built for exactly this moment: floating weightless in warm, salt-heavy water that takes every ounce of pressure off your feet and back, or a traditional hammam and argan-oil massage to loosen the walking out of your muscles.

→ Book a float or hammam session to round off your day in the blue city — mornings for photos, afternoons in the water. It's the reset that makes the next day's wandering feel effortless.