Tetouan

The medina was built by families who came from Andalusia after 1492, and you can still read it in the courtyards and studded doors. The school of arts and crafts still trains masters of zellige and painted wood. The walls are limewashed white, redone every spring.

Tetouan was rebuilt at the end of the fifteenth century by families expelled from Andalusia, and you can still hear it in the language, the cooking and the way houses are built.

The medina has been a world heritage site since 1997. It is small, white, very clean, and almost unchanged. The doors are studded, the courtyards are covered, the streets are too narrow for a car.

The school of arts and crafts, opened in 1919, still trains masters in zellige, painted wood and carved plaster. The workshops can be visited, and the students readily show what they are doing.

Tetouan cooking comes from elsewhere. Granadan recipes were kept in families, and some are found nowhere else in Morocco.

The sea is forty minutes away, towards Martil, and the mountains begin right behind the town.