Chefchaouen is a small town in northern Morocco, located on the slopes of the Rif Mountains and notable for its blue-painted walls, benches, flower pots, and doors, which is why Chefchaouen is also called the “sky city.” It owes its unique appearance to the Andalusian Jews who settled in the town after their expulsion from Spain in 1492. In Judaism, blue is a sacred color. For several centuries, Chefchaouen was considered a sacred place, and visits by non-believers were prohibited on pain of death. Cats are also full-fledged residents, and there are almost more of them than people. The city was founded in 1471. Some time after its inception, towards the end of the century, it became a refuge for a large number of Muslims and Jews expelled from Spain. They took a liking to the Moroccan town, located on a hill, surrounded by walls and protected on one side by mountain ranges, which promised to serve as a reliable fortress for them. Upon arriving in Chefchaouen, they began to shape its appearance based on the models of their native Andalusia. That is why most of the walls in the old quarters are painted in a color sacred to Jews, which always reminds believers of heaven and God. Due to the fact that for several centuries Chefchaouen had the status of a sacred place and non-believers were forbidden to visit it on pain of death, it has retained its medieval appearance intact to this day. The tradition of painting buildings in various shades of blue has taken root among the local population, becoming an integral feature of the old part of the city. For a long time, Chefchaouen was declared a sacred city. This completely closed the territory to non-believers. Those who wanted to disobey had to risk their lives. Despite the fact that Chefchaouen is geographically close to Spain, Portugal, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Strait of Gibraltar, only three Europeans visited the blue city before the beginning of the 20th century. Each of them had to make a considerable effort not to be detected by the local population. For example, French explorer Charles Eugène Foucault disguised himself as a rabbi in order to enter the city and stayed in the forbidden city for no more than an hour. The next uninvited guest of the blue city was Walter Harris, a correspondent for The Times. He pretended to be a Moorish merchant, but spent most of his time in Chefchaouen living as a vagrant. William Summers was the least fortunate. This American missionary managed to sneak into Chefchaouen, but was poisoned shortly thereafter. Everything changed in 1912 when, thanks to a Franco-Spanish agreement, Spanish troops entered the territory of the blue city and revealed its beauty to the outside world.
