Walks · Morocco
Real places, told on your phone by someone who was there, as you walk to them.
Free · GPS-guided · works offline · your own pace
Souika · 53 min · 1.6 km · 8 stops · ★ 5.0
Told by Moulay Ali ibn Rashid
the town's founder
The man who built Chefchaouen walks you from the hill down to his kasbah.
Chefchaouen
Eglise
Molay Ali Ben Rachid
Dar El Ouahabi
Escaleras de colores
Grand Mosque of Chefchaouen
“They call me Moulay Ali ibn Rashid. In the year 1471 of your reckoning I stood on this hillside with masons, a plan for a fortress, and the certainty that Portuguese sails were coming for every town on this coast. I built walls. I did not build what you see…”
Chefchaouen medinaGrand Mosque of ChefchaouenKasbah of Chefchaouen
This month: Autumn comes mild and welcome now, the heat broken, the air carrying the dust of harvest from the valleys below my fortress.
When to go: Early morning or after 5pm — the lanes hold shade but the open squares and the kasbah courtyard are hard at midday, and the medina is calmest before 10am. The Kasbah charges a small entry fee and closes in the evening.
Chefchaouen rewards nobody who stays on wheels. The blue-washed lanes climb the Rif hillside too steeply and too narrowly for a bus, and the things worth finding — a plant-hung doorway, a flight of painted steps, the old Kasbah walls — sit close together in a medina built for feet, not traffic. A short walk from the hill down to the fortress takes in the town's church, its town hall, a neighbourhood mosque, and the Grand Mosque on Place Outa Hammam, before ending where the whole town began.
Walk & Tell turns that walk into a self-guided audio guide narrated by Moulay Ali ibn Rashid, the man who founded Chefchaouen in 1471 to hold this coast against the Portuguese. GPS starts each stop as you reach it, the whole route takes under an hour, and it's free to try, with the walk downloadable for offline use in case the signal drops. It suits a first visit, a spare afternoon, someone walking alone, or a couple wanting Chefchaouen in one day without a guide book in hand.
Walk & Tell is a self-guided audio walking-tour app. Walks are free to try; download one for offline before you set out. All cities