Tetouan
UNESCO World Heritage Site: Medina Of Tetouan, Formerly Known As Titawin (1997), Refounded By Andalusian Refugees From Granada And The Most Completely Andalusian Medina In Morocco; Later The Capital Of The Spanish Protectorate · Tetouan, Tanger-Tetouan-Al Hoceima
Tetouan is the Andalusian city, and that is the whole reason to come. Refounded from the 1480s by Muslims from Granada and repopulated after the expulsions from Spain, its UNESCO-listed medina was built by people who had just left a Spanish city and made another one: lime-washed walls, wrought-iron window grilles, tiled doorways, small squares and straight-ish lanes rather than one great covered souk. Walk in from Fes or Marrakesh and the difference is immediate - this looks like a hill town in Andalusia that happens to be in Africa, sitting under the Rif escarpment ten kilometres from the Mediterranean. It is also a working residential medina, almost free of hassle, with the Royal Palace closing one end of Place Hassan II, small tanneries nobody manages for visitors, a craft school still teaching the trades, and a Spanish Protectorate new town of plazas and shuttered apartment blocks outside the walls. Honest caveat: there is far less to buy and fewer guides and services than in Fes, and most people see it properly in a day.
Walled medina below the Rif escarpment around Place Hassan II and the Royal Palace, about 40 km south of Tangier and 10 km from the Mediterranean at Martil, Tetouan, Tanger-Tetouan-Al Hoceima, Morocco
The medina has no hours and no gate: the lanes run from early morning, are busiest from about 9:00 to 13:00 and again from 16:00 to 20:00, go quiet around Friday midday prayers, and empty early in the evening because people live here rather than trade late. Museums and the craft school keep a broad pattern of roughly 9:00 to 16:00 or 17:00, usually with one closed day a week and often a long lunch break, with shorter hours through Ramadan - several Tetouan collections have also spent long stretches under restoration, so confirm what is actually open on the day. Place Hassan II is at its best in the evening when the whole city walks there. Getting there: grand taxis and buses run from Tangier in roughly 1 hour over about 40 km, Chefchaouen is 1 to 1.5 hours south, and CTM and Supratours coaches serve the station outside the walls. There is no railway to Tetouan. Confirm times locally.