Chefchaouen – the prettiest town in Morocco!
Once Grant had celebrated his second 27th birthday with cake and candles we headed out of Tanger for Chefchaouen (pronounced Shef-Shau-Wen). The town is perched 1,000 meters above sea level between two mountain heads from which the town gets its name meaning “Horned-Mountain”. As welcoming as the town is, up until 1920 Chefchaouen was incredibly hostile towards Christian visitors and in fact until then only three Christians had even been into the town. We found a delightful campsite high up on a rocky hill overlooking the city. That evening we clambered down the hill into the medina (old town) to explore the bustling labyrinth of blue-washed alleyways. We weaved our way through the crooked streets, which come alive in the evenings with a myriad of spice merchants, barbers, silk-weavers and aromatic tagines.
Looking for a place to eat we found the main square which was full of broad-smiled, wheeler-dealers to rival any Brick Lane wannabe’s. We settled on Aladin’s Restaurant which came recommended by Mikaela. The waiter, dressed in full Aladin attire served us delicious tangines of lamb stewed with prunes and almonds and tender olive and citrus chicken.
The next day we rose at sunrise to capture the medina awakening in the early morning light. We were sad to leave but being a day behind schedule we needed to push on towards Fes. On our way out we handed out our first football to some grateful kids as we said goodbye to the blue-stoned village.
