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.