Though I’d heard the word a lot while planning my trip, I didn’t understand what a medina was until I stepped into one. It’s an old city. Walled off, you often enter through a clay gate. The walls are beige or brown or clay-colored. But not in Chefchaouen.
The walls, the steps, the roofs of many of the buildings in the Chefchaouen medina are painted a light shade of blue. It’s very soothing and it keeps the temperature cool.
Chefchaouen, in a word, is relaxing. Whether because it’s a small town in the Rif mountains, or because of the blue medina, I can’t say.