Morocco Travel Blog | The Blue Pearl - Chefchouen
Chefchouen is hands down, my favorite part about Morocco (second favorite next to the Sahara Desert I suppose, but you can actually live here). It's a small city known as the Blue Pearl, up North in the Riff Mountains painted in all shades of blue. Yes, the streets, the walls, the homes, anything they can paint will be in a variety of blue. It's beautiful and amazing also because blue is our favorite color.
Asides from the natural beauty, the people here are the second best part about this city. They are so hospitable and chill. They aren't up tourists' butt and let us do our own thing. They patiently wait to the side for you to finish up your picture in their alleys or even offer to take one for you. Chouens give a hand whenever they can and on top of it, they're always giving their best.
How do you get here? There is no direct flight to Chefchaouen. You can take a five hour bus ride from Fes like we did or a two hour bus ride from Tangier. Either way, it's a bit of drive, but absolutely worth it.
Casa Hassan Tissemlal is a "formal" restaurant nearby Casa Perlata with probably the best food in Chefchouen or better yet all of Morocco.
When: opens for dinner around 8:30 pm so make sure you call ahead before walking over there to see if they're open for lunch/dinner
Cost: entrees cost around 30-70 dirhams plus dessert which is around 20-50 dirhams, so basically a meal for two of us cost a little less than $30
Who: the restaurant is a part of the Casa Hassan hotel riad, ask the locals for directions on how to get here (it's pretty simple once you find out how to get there)
Duration: takes about less than 20 minutes for them to fire up your food so pretty average wait
Tips: order the steak! It was so flavorful and delicious and it's hard to find steak in general without it being in tagine so definitely take advantage.
My personal experience: Our riad staff gave us this recommendation and we took their word on it for being the best. Once again our staff was on point and that was probably the most flavorful food we've had in Morocco. The steak was our favorite. It was so tender and juicy, ugh we really wish we had more nights to eat dinner there. We'd definitely come back to this restaurant, probably eat there every other night on our next visit.
Lecheria Sadiki is the best smoothie stand you'll ever find and I can bet probably in all of Morocco as well.
When: we found out when we were leaving in the AM that this amazing smoothie stand does not open until evening hours
Cost: about 20-30 dirhams so $2 or $3 (amazing!)
Who: a stand just run by young dudes
Duration: takes about 5-10 minutes for it to be made
Tips: get the Zaza mixed fruit drink, you'll never taste anything as good and fresh as that!
My personal experience: we were talking to our riad host, Simo who was just gulping this smoothie down so we asked him where to get that. Turns out you can also get egg and cheese sandwiches there too where were pretty good, but the drinks are way better! I've never had avocado milk smoothie before, but this is definitely now my favorite smoothie! They put other fresh fruits in there as well with some chocolate syrup, you can't beat this. I was determined to get this drink again before we left Chechouen, but that's when we found out the hard way they're only open in the evening :( so get as much of it as you can!