Spectacular weather.  A sea of blue.  Energerized artists.  Restaurants galore.  Chefchauen — or just Chauen, as the locals call it — didn’t disappoint.

The last photo above is on the roof terrace of the newly opened Café Clock, where some of us had lunch today, and where others will be lunching on Saturday in the Fès original of this British owned restaurant.

Even the washing is blue (and note the dog — a rarity in a country seemingly teeming with cats and kittens):

Artists everywhere:

These young lads put on a show for Pam after admiring her work:

Ev got lost in the blue maze:

There are some splashes of other colours:

Amazingly our painters didn’t run out of blue ink and produced some truly lovely works for an early evening critique session on the shaded roof terrace of our riad.

Dinner tonight at a local restaurant and tomorrow an early start for the trip to Fès.

Chefchauen means “look at the peaks” and indeed the majestic mountains of the Rif can be seen from the city.  But really it should be called “look at me; I’m all blue!”

Chefchaouen is Morocco’s popular blue-washed city and the next stop (for two nights) on our tour.  We took the long way to get here from Tangier.  But first, the amazing news is that we, or rather, Majid, got all our big suitcases into the luggage compartment on the bus and we left five minutes early at 8.25 am, having had a massive breakfast and said adieu to La Tangerina.

First stop was Tétouan, the old capital of Spanish Morocco, a dazzling white town high in the hills overlooking the Med in the distance and the Rif.

After a comfort stop we then hugged the coastline along a beautiful winding road to Oued Laou, a seaside resort town that’s worth a miss, before heading inland along a dramatically beautiful gorge en route to Chefchauen.

Majid and Lyn were happy — maybe it was the sight of some kif growing by the river (there were whole plantations of weed along the valley)!  That’s it in the green patch on the left, above the stones in the foreground of the second pic below.

After finding our way through Chefchaouen’s medina and stopping for lunch, we settled into sumptuous rooms at the Lina Ryad, right in the heart of blue-land.  Ev took advantage of the late afternoon light for a demo from the riad’s roof terrace (negotiated with some degree of difficulty up many, many stairs).

Dinner in our riad tonight and more leisurely painting in Chefchauen’s derbs (alleys) tomorrow.

Onto our bus today for an hour’s drive to the seaside town of Assilah, an old Portuguese-constructed port fortress from the 15th century.  A bit of a squeeze getting us all settled into the bus so it will be interesting to see how we manage tomorrow with our suitcases, but we’re assured everything will be ok.  Inshallah!

Our troops assembled in a surprisingly empty (of people) square for Ev’s daily demo followed by a good few hours of painting the blue and white buildings and alleys.

Later there was a lesson for a few of the group in Arabic calligraphy…

…while others explored the village and its art.  Each year there’s an artists festival here where people express their talents on the walls of the town.

The main meal today was lunch at a Spanish restaurant at the Iberian hour of 3 pm before returning to Tangier.

Off to Chefchauen tomorrow.

Rain!  How could this happen after such a gorgeous starry evening yesterday?  Not heavy but a steady drizzle and enough to send us scurrying for shelter just as we started breakfast on the terrace.

Not that this deterred our painters who duly reassembled on the damp terrace for the first of Ev’s demos for the tour.  Although, later, some decided watercolour painting isn’t actually enhanced by real water coming from the sky, so they adjourned to the parlour downstairs in our riad (La Tangerina).

After a lazy lunch under the banyan tree (or at least that’s what I thought it was), there was more painting in some of the alley ways in the Kasbah (old fortress) area of Tangier.

This is where Matisse lived and painted last century and his fame is well known to the locals.  One of our artists was painting the façade of a building when a young man approached saying did she know this was exactly the spot where Matisse painted.  Oh, said our painter, modestly, “perhaps mine is not as good.”  “No,” came the brutally honest response! Laughter all around!

Later we enjoyed mint tea back on “our” terrace for some more painting overlooking the Med.

It amazes me how extremely close we are to Spain — clearly visible across the sea:

Dinner tonight at El Morocco Club, just around the corner.  Pulled lamb with dates on the menu — délicieux!

Our intrepid leaders, Ev and Pam, at the front door of La Tangerina riad in Tangier today before exploring the kasbah and medina in this wonderful city.

Home to 2 million people, Tangier (or Tanger) has a long history as the closest point on the African continent to Europe, being today only a brief ferry ride away from Tarifa in Spain.  At stages, a Roman, British, Portuguese, Spanish and French city, the white-washed buildings reflect the more recent times as a Spanish protectorate.  But there’s no mistaking that today this is very much a proud Moroccan place and an appropriate entrée to Evocative Morocco 2018!

Our tour began with an information and getting-to-know each other session on the rooftop terrace of La Tangerina riad where all 16 of us, plus one, swapped expectations for the trip and heard from Ev as we sipped mint tea, heard the seagulls compete with the call to prayer from a dozen nearby mosques, and marvelled at the view across the water to Spain.

A hearty tagine dinner, with some lovely Moroccan wines, and off to bed before painting begins in earnest tomorrow, Sunday, September 30.  Where did the month go?

It’s hard to believe that it’s just over two weeks before our 2018 Morocco art tour begins in the northern city of Tangier.

I’ll be blogging daily — or at least attempting to do so depending on the internet connection speeds — so you can follow our adventures and see some of the scenes our artists painted.

It all starts on Saturday, September 29.

Paul