Chefchaouen

Set against the peaks of the Rif, the blue town is walked slowly, between staircases and low doorways. The air is cool, the water comes down from the mountains, and time seems to step back a notch.

The town leans against the Rif at six hundred metres, and that changes everything. Evenings are cool even in August, water comes down from the mountains, and you walk uphill from morning to night.

The blue is not a recent invention for postcards. Jewish families who settled here in the fifteenth century are said to have brought the blue limewash, and the habit stayed. The walls are redone every spring, by hand, shade by shade.

Outa el Hammam square is the centre of everything. The red kasbah on one side, the mosque with its octagonal minaret on the other, and cafés where you can sit a long time over very little.

In the morning the light comes from the north and the lanes shift from grey to full blue in half an hour. The coaches arrive around ten. Early risers have the town to themselves.

The Spanish mosque is a forty minute climb on a path that starts behind the medina. From up there you see the whole town and the fields climbing the slopes.