The riad at dusk: lit palms and the pool above the blue town, with the mountains behind

Maison d'Hôtes & Riad

A riad on the Ras El Ma road, above the blue medina — with a garden, a pool, and the Rif at the end of every view.

Route Ras El Ma, Quartier El Onsar, Chefchaouen5P9V+G7

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The house

Dar Echchaouen stands where Chefchaouen stops being a town and becomes a mountain — on the road up to Ras El Ma. It is a maison d’hôtes and a riad: rooms and suites in Andalusian-Moroccan style, arches of brick and carved plaster, tadelakt and coloured glass, gathered around a garden. From almost every threshold, the blue medina is below you.

A carved and painted Moroccan door set in an arched doorway, with lanterns on the tiled floor — Route Ras El Ma, Quartier El Onsar, Chefchaouen

Un riad d’un style de décoration andalou-marocain.

A riad in an Andalusian-Moroccan decorative style.Dar Echchaouen, in its own words

Maison d'hôtes: Rooms and suites around a garden
Riad: Arches, tadelakt, carved plaster, coloured glass
Table: Moroccan cooking — couscous, tagine, pastilla

Rooms & suites

Arches, tadelakt, and the town below.

Every room is air-conditioned and decorated in traditional Moroccan style, with a private bathroom and a shower tiled in tadelakt. The suites add a sitting area and a fireplace.

A white room under a wooden ceiling, with two hanging lanterns beside the bed

Standard room

18 to 20 m², for two.

White walls under a wooden ceiling, lanterns at the bedside, and a private bathroom with a tadelakt shower.

A bed beneath a carved plaster arch, with a teal armchair and a wooden beamed ceiling

Junior suite

35 to 40 m², with a sitting area.

A carved plaster arch over the bed, a sitting area beside it, and a fireplace for the mountain evenings. For two or three guests.

A suite sitting area with a low table and cushions, opening through an arch to the bedroom

Chalet junior quadruple

40 to 50 m², for four.

The largest of the three categories: a salon of low seating opening through an arch to the bedroom, arranged for four.

A brick arch inside a suite, framing the bed, the sitting area and the terrace above the medina

The view

A terrace over the blue town.

Rooms look onto the garden, the valley or the medina. The balconies and terraces catch the light at both ends of the day.

A bathroom with a stone basin, a framed mirror and a shower tiled in green zellij

Tadelakt

Polished plaster, green zellij.

Each room and suite has its own bathroom, the shower tiled in tadelakt, some set into walls of green zellij with a stone basin.

A room at night, its door open to a balcony above the lights of Chefchaouen

After dark

The medina, lit.

When the town switches on below, the balcony is the reason to stay in for an hour before dinner.

In every room

Air conditioning
Private bathroom, tadelakt shower
Free Wi-Fi, up to 49 Mbps
Tea and coffee maker
Room service
Non-smoking
Family rooms available
Traditional Moroccan décor

The three categories

Standard room18–20 m² · 2 guests
Junior suite35–40 m² · 2–3 guests · sitting area and fireplace
Chalet junior quadruple40–50 m² · 4 guests

Categories and sizes as published by Dar Echchaouen.

House notes

Check-in: From 14:00
Check-out: By 12:00
Breakfast: Buffet — Moroccan and international
Children: Welcome at any age
Quiet hours: 21:00 – 09:00
Smoking: Not permitted
Pets: Not permitted

What guests keep mentioning

The décor and the detail
The garden and its corners
How clean it is
The view from the balcony
Breakfast
The staff

Paraphrased from guest reviews on the property's Booking.com listing.

Garden & pool

The garden holds the light.

The grounds step down the hillside in terraces: a seasonal outdoor pool with a smaller one for children, a tiled fountain in the courtyard, pergolas, orange trees and bougainvillea — and the Rif standing over all of it.

The outdoor pool at night, lit blue beneath illuminated trees and the mountain

Wicker armchairs under a wooden pergola hung with greenery and lamps

The tiled fountain in the garden at night, running beneath the lit ramparts

Guests are invited to relax in the riad's garden or take the pool. In the evening the courtyard is laid for dinner under the trees, the old ramparts above are lit, and the town below comes on one window at a time.

There is a sun terrace for the afternoon and shaded corners for the hours when Chefchaouen is at its brightest.

Pool: Seasonal outdoor pool, and a smaller one for children
Terrace: Sun terrace, shaded corners, pergola seating
Garden: Fountain courtyard, orange trees, bougainvillea
Arriving: Free guarded parking, 24/7 · airport shuttle

The table

Couscous, tagine, pastilla.

The kitchen cooks Moroccan. Meals are served in the restaurant, in the garden under the trees, or on a terrace with the medina in front of you.

A breakfast table laid on a terrace beside bougainvillea, above the valley

Mint tea poured from a red teapot into a glass

Tables set under the trees in the garden courtyard at dusk, lit by lanterns

A candlelit dinner table set in the restaurant, with curtains drawn back from the windows

Morning

Breakfast, laid outside.

A buffet of Moroccan and international dishes, included with most rates — taken on a terrace above the valley when the weather allows.
Afternoon

Mint tea, in the shade.

Poured from a height into a small glass, in a courtyard corner or under the pergola, while the town glares white and blue below.
Evening

Dinner under the trees.

Tables are set in the garden courtyard as the light goes, lanterns on, the ramparts lit behind the orange trees.
Night

Candlelight, indoors.

When the mountain air turns cold, dinner moves inside to the restaurant — couscous, tagine, pastilla by candlelight.

Cuisine and breakfast as described by Dar Echchaouen and on the property's Booking.com listing. No menu is reproduced here.

Chefchaouen

Ras El Ma is up the road.

The riad stands on Route Ras El Ma, the road that climbs to the spring where the mountain water comes out and the medina begins.

1471

Chefchaouen was founded in 1471 by Moulay Ali ibn Rashid as a fortified mountain town, around 600 metres up in the Rif, between Tétouan and Ouazzane.

Ras el-Ma: The spring east of the medina — the town's traditional source of water, and the road this riad is named for.
Outa el Hammam: The main square, framed by the Grand Mosque and the fifteenth-century Kasbah with its rammed-earth walls and ten towers.
The Spanish Mosque: Built on the hillside in the 1920s and now a lookout — the walk most guests take for the view back over the blue town.
Layers of arrival: Andalusian Muslims and Sephardic Jews settled here after the Reconquista, which is where the Andalusian half of the local architecture comes from.
The Rif: Talassemtane National Park and the Akchour waterfalls lie beyond the ridge, a short drive from the door.