Continue on the road to the north and arrive at the small town of Chefchaouen before dark. The next morning, walking up high to look out, the town had just lifted the cloud veil and revealed a fresh face. Founded in 1471 at an altitude of 564 metres, the city of Chefchaouene in a wide valley borders the Strait of Gibraltar to the north and the Autonomous Region of Andalusia, the southernmost tip of Spain.
The early Judaist and Muslim inhabitants from Andalusia, fleeing persecution and war, settled here, forming what is now a fusion of Mediterranean and Moroccan characteristics, and retaining the Andalusian atmosphere.
I came to Chefchaouen to see this blue, this incredibly famous blue. Almost all the houses in the old city were painted blue by the locals, but they were painted a little willfully, a little crazy, as if they wanted to use all the blue in the world to decorate the town.
Before the Spanish invasion, Chefchaouen remained isolated. It is stipulated that Christians may not refuse to enter, and violators will be executed. When the Spaniards arrived in Chefchaouen, they were surprised to hear that the local Jews still spoke a very different castilian language from the Middle Ages.
The popular practice of painting walls blue comes from Jewish refugees in the 1930s, while doors and windows were previously painted traditional Muslim green.
The size of the town expanded with the continuous entry of Muslim and Jewish refugees. They built white houses with small balconies and tiled roofs. In Judaism, blue represents the sky and heaven, and the blue allegory is in God's blessing and the embodiment of Jewish nostalgia. Later, the inhabitants of the small town followed suit, and Chefchaouen was surrounded by blue.
Along the arched earthen walls of the street, large swaths of blue come into view, dreamlikely, as if the deep blue of the Endless Atlantic Mediterranean Sea and the light blue of the sky meet together to form a tranquil blue harbor. Fresh air, fresh blue, quiet alleys, simple folk customs, and we just have to take a slow walk.
Every corner, every look up is a blue temptation. This is a world that uses blue to the extreme, a rough look at a piece of blue, but a fine distinction is a variety of blue, dark blue, light blue, lake blue, indigo, peacock blue, sapphire blue------ here you can see all kinds of blues that can be imagined.
Although only blue is outstanding, this small city with distinct Arab characteristics is inhabited by different ethnic groups, with Moors rushing by in Jeraba, Jews in white round hats, Berber women washing by the pool in gorgeous costumes, and Arab men sitting idly on the streets drinking mint tea. They speak all kinds of languages, observe all kinds of customs, wear all kinds of clothing, but they live in the same background, look up at the same sky, seek common ground while reserving differences, and complement each other.
The nomadic Berbers from the desert, maintaining the most primitive Moroccan traditional way of life, hats decorated with bright cotton thread, loose and flowing clothes, in a sea of blue, particularly eye-catching.
On the blue walls, on the stone ladders, under the eaves, you can see hand-woven cotton blankets, wool carpets, leather products full of North African style, and colorful natural dyes, full of artistic atmosphere.
After wandering around in the warm sun for a long time, it feels cool to sit down and eat here. Then refreshed continue on the road to the north.