Chefchaouen, Fes & Marrakech – Morocco

At Ceuta, we spent about 2 hours going through the border and then drove south and up the mountains. We spent 1 week in Chefchaouen, 1 week in Fes and 1 week in Marrakech.

Chefchaouen

Our first stop in Morocco was Chefchaouen (the Blue City) and we fell in love! It is like a mix between a Greek island and the Middle East—picture blue and white buildings with souks and small, interesting shops.

Chefchaouen is located in the mountains in the north. We stayed in a lovely little renovated apartment in the heart of the old city. There was a waterfall near the house and the view from the apartment was amazing! The apartment manager arranged for us to park in a square nearby where we paid a storekeeper 3 Euros per day to watch our car. Here are some photos of our apartment and the views from our apartment.

Each day, we wandered into town for lunch and then spent the whole afternoon getting lost in the winding streets and poking into the various shops – we just loved it! We stayed a week and wished we could have stayed longer – we’ll definitely have to come back.

Fes

Next stop was Fes where R’s parents joined us for a week. Fes has a really large (several kilometers) old town which is essentially the souk. It was easy to get lost in it… Unfortunately, our Airbnb cancelled on us 24 hours before we were supposed to arrive and we couldn’t find another one near the old town so we had to stay on the other side of Fes and walk (1.5 hours into the old town) or take a taxi (2 Euros). We ended up taking several walks all over the old town, the new town and our neighbourhood. By the end of our stay, we felt that we really saw a lot of the city of Fes!

The old city is surrounded by a wall and has a very authentic feel. There are 3 tanneries in the old city – we looked at one of them (the largest) from the top of a shop (see photo below that looks like a bunch of squares). Each square represents a different process stage in the tannery – the ones on the left contain chemicals for rotting the flesh, the ones on the right for dying the hides. The tannery uses hides from cows, camels, goats and sheep. As we were leaving, we passed a delivery of fresh camel hides being piled up and ready to go into the tannery.

Marrakech

We stayed in a beautiful apartment in a new complex in the ritzy part of Marrakech (in between the Meridien hotel and the Four Seasons) and next to a shopping mall. It was only about a 25 minute walk into the old city. Unfortunately, I got sick in Marrakech and had to spend a few days in bed, but I was able to get out and explore the city for a few days.

In the old town, the Jamaa el-Fnaa square is a massive tourist trap right on the edge of the souk. The square has people handling monkeys on chains and snake charmers (I didn’t take any photos because they wanted money) and tons of horses and carriages. During the day it was also full of fruit stalls making juice and at night these turned into dinner stalls selling grilled meats and escargots.

The souk in Marrakech is also very large with lots of hidden historical buildings and gardens throughout. We really enjoyed the mixture of old and new and Marrakech and liked the feel of this city (except for the tourist square). You could also see the Atlas Mountains on a clear day which surround the city. The mountains were capped with snow.

Next stop is Agadir on the coast where we will be meeting a lot of other Worldschooling families for a week of activities and fun!