Asilah
A Small Whitewashed Atlantic Medina Inside Fifteenth Century Portuguese Ramparts, Repainted Each Summer For A Long Running Arts Festival Whose Murals Are Left On The Walls Until The Next Year · Asilah, Tanger-Tetouan-Al Hoceima
Asilah is a small whitewashed port about 45 km south of Tangier, and the gentlest introduction to a Moroccan medina that the north has: a few blocks of lime-washed houses with blue and green doors, wrapped in ramparts the Portuguese built in the fifteenth century, with the Atlantic breaking at the foot of the sea wall. What makes it unusual is paint. Since the late 1970s a summer arts festival has invited painters to work directly on the medina walls, and the murals are left up until the next year repaints them, so the town you photograph in August is not the one you find in May. The Krikia bastion looks out over the water, a cemetery of whitewashed tombs sits on the rocks outside the wall, and the palace Raisuli built in 1909 stands on the ramparts above the sea. Long flat beaches run north and south. Honest caveats: it is small, and half a day covers the medina properly; in August it is packed and expensive with Moroccan and Spanish holidaymakers; in winter much of it is shut; and by spring the murals look tired.
Whitewashed medina inside the Portuguese ramparts on the Atlantic, about 45 km south of Tangier on the N1, Asilah, Tanger-Tetouan-Al Hoceima, Morocco
The medina has no opening hours at all - the gates stand open and the lanes are walked at any time of day or night. Shops and galleries run from roughly mid-morning to about 20:00, later in summer, and a good many simply close for the winter. The Raisuli palace on the ramparts is not reliably open to visitors and is used mainly during the summer arts festival, so treat an interior visit as luck rather than a plan and confirm locally. Getting there: Asilah is on the conventional ONCF line from Tangier, roughly 40 minutes, but the station sits a couple of km out of town and needs a taxi; shared grands taxis from Tangier take about 45 minutes and CTM coaches stop on the main road. Nothing needs booking except a room in August, which needs booking months ahead.