Morocco Travel Diary- Chefchaouen, the blue pearl

Oh, hi guys!

It's me again! :)

After a beautiful and sunny Spring week, the weekend brought upon gloomy weather and rain, so I thought I'd share my most colorful holiday pics to compensate for the weather outside.

Today, it's Chefchaouen's turn to be the star! I cannot even begin to describe that place... I just hope I will do it justice with the way I tried to capture its beauty. Chefchaouen was not even on our itinerary when we first started planning our trip to Morocco. We wanted to see the the big cities, it never even crossed our minds that we'd end up giving up on visiting Casablanca to go to Chefchaouen. But as we started collecting feedback from friends who had previously been to Morocco, and after seeing a few pictures on the internet of this amazing place, Chefchaouen moved to the top of our "must see" list.

We had almost a full day of visiting the blue town. We left Fes in the morning, right after breakfast, and after a 4 hour drive we finally got there. Parked our car and went to the old town area. After grabbing some lunch, we went ahead and wandered the narrow streets, mesmerized by the vivid blue walls that are everywhere in the medina. No wonder they call it the Blue Pearl! Everywhere you look, you get struck by beauty! People are super friendly, there are a lot of small shops where you can buy souvenirs from (prices are a lot lower that in the big markets). And those blue walls, man! That color gives you such a peaceful feeling... everything was so different from the agitation we found in Fes, not to mention Marrakech, nobody seemed to be in a hurry, everyone was super chill and relaxed (both tourist and locals). Afterall, the area IS famous for its hashish so all that laid-back, no-fucks-given vibe of the small town might have something to do with that. I'll have what there're having, you know what I mean? :))) But anywayzzz (insert stupid grin), that blue painted medina can cure any problem. I've done a bit of research and found out that Jews started painting the walls blue sometime in the 30's because it symbolized heaven and sky, then everybody started to get into that color so now the entire old area is vibrant blue. It seems to also keep the mosquitoes away, so the advantages keep on coming.

Another thing that I enjoyed was the enormous number of cats that we encountered during our walks (even the cats were relaxed, and I'm not even kidding- what's with that place?!??). I loved how they gave life to those narrow streets and beautifully decorated doors.

I'm going to go ahead and leave you with the pictures!

Many, many hugs and have a beautiful Sunday!

Love,

Mamalina

Outfit details:
Jacket: Desigual 
Jeans/Shirt: H&M
Adidas Superstars 
Andra Oprea Shop round bag

Morocco Travel Diary- Fes, Part Two

Hi guys,

Guess what? I am actually back with another post as part of Morocco Travel Diary. Today I'm gonna show you how we spent our second day in Fes, right before driving to the mountains. We spend the first day visiting the huge Medina, and now we had half a day to wander the streets of the beautiful Fes El Bali (the old town). Since our Riad was inside the Medina, we packed our bags really quickly, left them at the hotel and hit the road before the markets started to get very crowded and it would have been harder to walk through the Medina.

During our last day in Fes we went to Jardin Jnan Sbil, a really beautiful park that looked almost like a botanical garden, then we walked a little bit through the Jewish Quarter, and finally went back to the Medina for lunch and to buy some more spices and souvenirs before leaving. We also visited Nejjarine Museum of Wood Arts and Crafts, which is an amazing historic building right in the heart of the Fes Medina. We really enjoyed the time spent there, and the building itself is definitely worth the entrance fee.

We had parked our car as close as we could from the Riad, but it was still not close enough, so carrying our bags on a full stomach on the crowded, narrow streets of the Medina was not fun at all! But we managed to reach our car and drove to Tombe dei Merenidi, which is located on a hill above Fes el Bali, to take one last look at the beautiful old area.

I hope you guys will enjoy the post. Still have so many pictures to show you, I'm a bit overwhelmed and I'm not kidding! Hopefully, I'm going to be able to stay on track with this travel diary, and even maybe throw in one/two posts form my trip to Berlin from time to time. That would be a great mixture, because the two places that we've visited this Spring are soooo diferrent, so contrasting, so I think it would be a good idea to mix it up a little bit!

Anyways, have a great weekend and talk to you soon!

Love,

Mamalina

Oufit details:
Jeans, Bomber jacket & Sweater- H&M
Vans sneakers
Necklace: Mango
Bag: Accesorize