Chaouen And Tetouan - Cities by The Rif

Posted On Saturday, May 30, 2009 at at 12:08 AM by Alvin  

These two "twin-sounding" city names could not be more different in characters - the Rif mountain cities of Chaouen And Tetouan. The Rif Mountains provided the pensive and moody backdrop to these cities. We went hiking in The Rif and exploring the Moroccan Mediterranean during our visits here.
Moving on to Chaouen from Fez involved sitting in a bus for 4 hours where the inside temperature reached a boiling 38 Celsius ! Luckily the cool breezes around Chaouen awaited us and we found Chaouen to be a charming place with small squares and outdoor cafes set in a relaxing environment; I would say Chaouen reminded us most, of a petite Greek island. We hiked for one day around the villages in The Rif where at places we were met with some gale force winds and at other villages as peaceful as Swiss Alpine meadows, all in the space of an hour !

Tetouan instead was a much larger city with numerous solid Spanish churches, tiled buildings and a fair size Medina; the city exuded Spanish colonial style aplenty ! We spent time exploring this city as well as taking a bus to nearby Martil and Cabo Negro for a day trip. Martil and Cabo Negro turned out to be a long stretch of Mediterranean resort seaside where lucky peoples from Tetouan spent their weekends. We enjoyed our last day in this lovely country over a bottle of Moroccan red wine while watching the sun played out sunset shadows on The Rif.

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