Feelin' Blue

27-Oct-23

Today was another big travel day from Chefchaouen in the northern Rif Mountains to Meknes, heading south towards the coast & our final stop in Morocco. 

We had a few hours on a very cloudy, drizzly day to check out Chefchaouen on our own, so of course, as we do, we booked a free walking tour. 😉 For centuries Chefchaoen was just a sleepy agricultural/fishing town that, due to being so far north, doubled as a military outpost against invading Spanish & Portuguese. It started to grow in population during the Middle Ages when Muslim and Jewish refugees were fleeing the Reconquista on the Iberian Peninsula. Supposedly, this remained the case even after WWII, when Jewish people were fleeing Europe.

Fortified city walls

Entrance gate to the old city

...and thus begins the 'legend of the blue walls'.

Nowadays, the big tourist draw in Chefchaouen is the color blue - all the walls and many streets are painted dazzling colors of blue. And it's beautiful! There are various explanations as to why the city painted itself blue but no one guide seems to have the same answer. The most common story we heard is that local Jewish homes would paint their houses blue to represent their faith, and distinguish their neighborhood from the color green that represents Islam. The blue became so pretty/popular, that even Muslim homes started to be painted blue until you got an entire blue city. 

Other theories include:

• blue deters mosquitos
• blue cools off buildings
• blue is a universal symbol of heaven & reminds people to lead a spiritual life
• the blue walls didn't exist until the 1970s as a means of attracting tourists

The latter is certainly true today, as even the walking tour included stops in specifically "instagrammable" spots. So of course, we indulged 😉

This may be the best photo I've taken on the entire trip!

Overlooking the city & the cloud covered hills

Our next stop was to the Roman ruins of Volubilis - a Berber settlement dating to the 3rd century BCE that fell under Roman rule in the 1st century CE, and may have been the capital of the Kingdom of Mauretania. Only about 1/3rd of the site has been excavated, so more discoveries and clarifications are yet to come. 

The region was prosperous for its vast olive orchards and supposedly a lot of wealthy families lived here - as evidenced by the large floor mosaics and massive (though crumbling) floor plans uncovered in the 19th century. 

After Rome fell, various tribes/religions populated the are but the town of Volubilis itself appears to have been abandoned by the 11th century. The ruins were severely damaged by the 1755 Lisbon earthquake and the rubble removed to help build the nearby town of Meknes (our next stop). 

Public bath

Arch of Caracalla 

Basilica

Temple

Meknes was our quickest visit to any town in Morocco - we only stayed there for a night. Normally, there is a massive imperial palace, giant city gates, & a fortified kasbah to visit (the city was founded in the 11th century & served as the former capital of Morocco in the late 17th-early 18th century), but all of those things were closed simultaneously for renovations, so there was quite literally, nothing to see. The tour company kept the city on our itinerary as a good overnight spot before continuing the drive south the next day. It's a shame we didn't get to see any of the cool stuff in Meknes, but to be honest, I'm not sure how we would have managed it had any of the places been open anyway. This tour has been great but it packs A LOT of sites & covers A LOT of mileage each day. We rolled into Meknes just before sunset to get a quick driving tour of what we would have seen were it not covered up by barriers & scaffolding - lol - then we had an hour to rest at our hotel before dinner. So yeah, a very ambitious schedule, despite site closures. To Meknes' credit, however, we did have our most delicious meal during the entire trip here! 😋

View of Meknes from our hotel rooftop

The riad (former mansion turned hotel) we stayed in was over 660 years old!

The family of kittens that lived outside our riad