Chefchaouen Day Trip from Fes

Chefchaouen is four hours north of Fes, high in the Rif mountains, and the whole medina is painted blue — walls, steps, doorframes, plant pots. The colour has been maintained since the 1930s and repainted every year, which is why it photographs the way it does. We leave early so you get the best of the light and the quietest streets, before the coach parties arrive around midday.

There is no fixed route once you are there: the medina is small enough to wander without a map, and the pleasure is in the side lanes rather than the main square. Plaza Uta el-Hammam is where you stop for lunch, under the walls of the kasbah, and the Spanish Mosque on the hill above town is a twenty-minute climb for the view back down over the blue roofs. Long day, and worth it — you are back in Fes for dinner.