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Many cities in Morocco feature a beautiful Medina ("old town"), but none of them is as eye-catching as the one in Chefchaouen: Every single house is painted in a beautiful blue colour.
The mountain village was shaped by Jewish and Muslim immigrants who were expelled from Andalucia in the late 15th century, so no wonder the Medina has a Spanish touch. Colourwise, for hundreds of years Chefchaouen's Medina used to be just like all the other Medinas in Marocco: White buildings with occasional green elements, the colours of Islam.
There are different stories to how the blue colour was introduced into the Medina, but the one I liked most was the one an old Berber told me: There were little jobs in Chefchaouen and the economic situation was generally bad, so all the village gathered together to come up with a plan on how to improve their situation.
People from the Jewish community in Chefchaouen were there as well and since they were known to be clever businessmen, the village asked them for advice. "Easy", said the Jewish people, "get a lot of blue paint and paint all the Medina blue!".
"What good would that do?" replied the Muslim people. "If you paint the Medina blue, you will get a lot of tourists. And the tourists will make you a lot of easy money!" said the Jewish people. And so it was done, and if you look at all the tourists flocking into the small mountain town today, you may wonder if there actually is some truth to this story...
Camera Gear
Sorry for the heavily compressed photos, but while Marocco is a beautiful country, the internet speed is a digital nomad's worst nightmare!
The camera I used to capture this photos is a Nikon D5500 (APS-C) with a Nikon 10-20mm F4,5–5,6 SAM lens.
Ah, that is some amazing story behind all that blue! If it's true, I'd say it has really worked for them. Lovely pictures as always! These blue houses remind me of Jodhpur, the blue city of India. I'll have to read about the story behind that. :)
Thank you for your nice comment :) India seems to have everything! I really need to travel there one day..
Very good pictures and explanation, I traveled a few times to Morocco, never visited this beautiful blue city . It’s on my bucket list 😎
I'm sure you will love it there! Chefchaouen is only a few hours from Fez :)
The town's color is so pleasant and relaxing to look at, like the ocean or sky. That's a great and successful community idea they got, if the story were true. :)
I hope you wouldn't experience the same internet nightmare if you ever visit the PH because it's also an issue here.
It is such a beautiful place :) I might go back there one day..
In (Southeast) Asia the internet was actually the fastest I have come across on my entire travels! But I am not travelling for the Wifi, so I enjoy having some weeks where I spend less time online than usually :)
Same here, I would like to be offline some days and just be with nature :)
Incredible place with a soul!
Agree! Thanks for your comment, hope to see you around more often! :)
Chefchaouen ist immer eine Reise wert! Bei den Ouzoud Wasserfaellen laesst es sich auch gut aushalten ;) war selbst 3 Monate dort
Das waren bestimmt drei tolle Monate! Ich hab' leider nur noch zwei Wochen.. Ich hab gerade geschaut wo die Ouzoud Wasserfälle liegen, vielleicht schaffe ich es da ja noch hin; Momentan bin ich in Merzouga und will morgen früh zum Todra Gorge und weiter Richtung Ouarzazate.
Jews are so smart! It's true!!! This place has been on the top of my bucket list for 4 years!!! Was it as amazing as looks in pictures? Was it magical? Did you feel like you were on top of the world?
Chefchaouen was really magical! I couldn't believe there are actually so many blue houses there! "on top of the world" is actually a good description for this place :D
These are so beautiful, I really would love to do couple portraits in this little town!!
I bet they would turn out amazing like all your couple photographies! :)
Awww thank you!
I love your posts , the photos are always so colourful and 'warm' it's a nice getaway from the cold here.
Thank you! I am so happy to have escaped the cold in Germany for a while :)
Even if your photos are compressed they can still show properly this unique location. Impressive the blue of the buildings but what I really did not know that there was a Jewish community in Morocco since the 15th century.
There actually was a huge Jewish community on the Iberian Peninsula under Muslim reign since they were very tolerant, but when the Spanish Kings reconquered the lands after some hundred years, they forced out everybody who was not Christian and founded the Inquisition.. Many moved to Morocco.
nice pictures my friend!
Thank you my friend :) I haven't found the time (nor Wifi..) to read all of your recent posts, but I can't wait to do that when I get back home!
Wow looks amazing. On first hand it looks lile Santorini :)
Ps: good luck with travelfeed!
Thanks for your comment! There are already so many amazing travel bloggers already using #travelfeed in their posts so I think we are doing great!
the blue walls provide a calm atmosphere!
The whole city is super relaxed! Sorry for the late reply..
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Hiya, just swinging by to let you know that this post made the Honorable Mentions list in today's Travel Digest!
Amazing, thanks!
Beautiful place. I went there 25 years ago now. Amazing place and fascinating people. Thanks for the pics :)
Chefchaouen is so beautiful! Thanks for your comment :)
Thanks Dan! Happy to hear you have finally made it to Peru! Time for a break from writing Steemit posts all day I hope!
Here in Morocco the internet is so slow (probably somewhat like on the Galapagos!), so I couldn't do as much curation work for #travelfeed posts as I would have wished to, but we already have many people using the tag. We are going to start with our first curation post today :) The downside is, that we couldn't get any big voters to follow our curation trail, so my vote is the biggest at the moment and we have amazing posts that we curated but that are still sitting at under one Dollar... We have reached out to so many whales without success, but maybe after some time, we will get some more support I hope..
you are right Dan, love the initiative! should use the tag myself aswell next time, forgot a few times
Thanks my friend, I would love to see your posts in #travelfeed!
We have reached out to some of them without a reply; my good friend @phortun and @czechglobalhosts are already using the tag, @czechglobalhosts even resteemed and upvoted our intro post, but I think he is using all of his SP for his own projects.. Maybe he can afford to follow our curation trail with just 1%, that would already help. When I get back home I'm going to ask him and I'll try to reach out to some of the whales you mentioned, thanks a lot!
I'm quite happy for the moment to be in the position to stay offline and away from Steemit for a few days and just enjoy my travels.
I just wanted to watch your video, but then I remembered that with Moroccan WiFi I can be happy if the images are loading :D Can't wait to watch your videos when I get home, I hope this will work out for you! Your help to build up travelfeed and the travel community on Steemit would be amazing, but take your time to travel and relax! Btw, if you are planning on taking night buses in Peru you are in for a very pleasant surprise, Peru probably has some of the most luxurious buses in the world!