Marrakech gets the headlines. The souks, the riads, the Jemaa el-Fnaa at dusk — it is deservedly famous and increasingly crowded. But Morocco is a country of distinct cities, each with its own color, rhythm, and reason for existing.
Two in particular reward travelers willing to leave the red city behind.
Chefchaouen — the blue city and its true story
Chefchaouen sits in the Rif Mountains of northern Morocco, its medina washed in shades of blue that have made it one of the most photographed places on Instagram. The images are accurate. The explanation usually offered — Jewish refugees painted walls blue to mirror the sky — is only partially true.
The blue likely originated from multiple traditions: Jewish custom, mosquito repellent folklore, and the practical cooling effect of light colors in mountain heat. What matters is the result: a city that feels like it was designed for contemplation rather than commerce.
What to do:
- Walk the medina at dawn before tour groups arrive — the blue is different in morning light
- Hike to the Spanish Mosque on the hill above town for sunset over the Rif
- Visit Ras el-Maa waterfall at the medina’s eastern edge where locals wash carpets
- Eat at Restaurant Tissemlal — tagines without the Marrakech markup
How long: Two full days minimum. One to photograph, one to stop photographing and simply be there.
Getting there: Bus from Fes (4 hours) or Tangier (3 hours). The journey is part of the experience — mountain roads, roadside tea, the gradual appearance of blue on distant walls.
Essaouira — where the Atlantic meets the medina
If Chefchaouen is Morocco’s interior dream, Essaouira is its Atlantic reality. A walled port city on the wind-swept coast, it has attracted artists, musicians, and travelers seeking something Marrakech cannot offer: space.
The medina is UNESCO-listed but feels lived-in rather than performed. Fishing boats return each afternoon with catches that appear on restaurant tables within the hour. Gnawa music — the spiritual tradition of sub-Saharan Africa filtered through Moroccan culture — fills the air during the annual festival in June.
What to do:
- Walk the ramparts at sunset — the Atlantic crashes against walls built to withstand it
- Explore the port when boats return — chaos, gulls, negotiation, life
- Visit galleries along Rue Laalouj — Essaouira has been an artist colony since the 1960s
- Eat grilled sardines at a port-side stall — the simplest meal in Morocco and among the best
How long: Three days. Essaouira rewards slowness — wind, salt, and the particular quality of light that made Orson Welles film Othello here.
Getting there: Three hours by bus from Marrakech through argan tree countryside. The road itself tells a story — from interior heat to coastal wind in a single journey.
The Marrakech problem — and how to do it right
Marrakech is not to be avoided. It is to be approached with strategy.
Stay in a riad in the medina but spend mornings in the Jardin Majorelle before crowds, evenings in Guéliz (the new town) where locals eat, and avoid the main souk corridors during peak hours. Hire a guide for half a day — not for safety but for navigation through a maze designed to disorient.
The city is overwhelming by design. That is its power and its test.
Building a Morocco itinerary beyond the obvious
10 days:
- Days 1–3: Fes (the medina that predates Marrakech’s fame)
- Days 4–5: Chefchaouen
- Days 6–8: Essaouira
- Days 9–10: Marrakech (with strategy)
The principle: Move from interior to coast, from mountain quiet to city intensity, from blue to red. Morocco reveals itself in sequence, not in snapshots.
What the blue city teaches
Chefchaouen’s blue is not a backdrop. It is an atmosphere — a decision made repeatedly, wall by wall, generation by generation, to live inside a color that calms and cools and distinguishes.
Essaouira teaches something different: that Morocco faces the Atlantic as boldly as the Mediterranean, and that wind is not an obstacle but a character in the story.
Beyond Marrakech, Morocco is not one experience. It is a country of contradictions worth resolving in person — slowly, with mint tea, in cities that have been waiting longer than your itinerary allows.
Field Notes is edited by Camille Laurent.