Nestled at the foot of the Rif Mountains and just a stone’s throw from the Mediterranean Sea, Tetouan is a city that boasts a rich tapestry of cultural heritage and stunning landscapes. Often overshadowed by its more famous neighbours like Tangier and Fes, Tetouan offers a unique blend of Moroccan and Andalusian influences, making it a fascinating destination for those looking to dive deep into Morocco’s diverse history and culture. In this article, we’ll explore the top things to do in Tetouan, providing you with all the insights you need to make the most of your visit!
Top Things to do in Tetouan
Feddan Park
Feddan Park, a lush oasis in the heart of Tetouan, is a must-visit for anyone looking to experience the serene side of city life. The park offers a tranquil escape from the bustling city streets, with its panoramic views of the surrounding mountains and the whitewashed houses of the city. Feddan Park also features playgrounds for children and ample benches where visitors can relax and soak in the natural beauty. The park’s central location makes it easily accessible and a perfect spot to unwind after exploring Tetouan’s vibrant medina and historic sites.
Feddan Park was actually located on the site where the Royal Palace was built, and eventually reconstructed in its present day location on the instruction of King Mohammed VI from 2014-2018. The transformation of these grounds into a public park was part of a broader urban development effort aimed at enhancing green spaces within Moroccan cities to improve public well-being and to beautify the urban landscape!
Take a Walking Tour
The absolute best way to see Tetouan is to take a guided walking tour! We took various walking tours during our northern Morocco trip and our guided tour in Tetouan was easily our favourite! We booked an English-speaking tour with Hassan, but unfortunately he wasn’t available on the hour we selected, so we were met by a colleague of his. Our guide Hamid was incredible, and our two hour tour lasted almost three hours in the end! We discovered so many hidden corners of the Medina that we wouldn’t have found by ourselves, and learned so much about the city and what life is like.
We used GuruWalk all across Morocco, and couldn’t recommend it more. GuruWalk offers ‘free walking tours’, in which there is no upfront payment, but where you tip based on how good you felt the tour was. The recommended amount to tip is $10-50 per person on a tour. For our tour, since we ended up with a private tour (there were no other people on the English-speaking tour!) and it was excellent, we tipped 500 dirham for the two of us (approx $50).
Our walking tour took us from Mohammed V Avenue, through the Medina, to various locations in the Medina that we wouldn’t have found – such as Palace Bricha, Palace Bouhlal, Riad Al Manantial and so much more – and around Mellah, the former Jewish neighbourhood.
Check out GuruWalk’s tours in Tetouan here!
Medina
Exploring the Medina is an absolute must when you’re in Tetouan! The best way to explore it is as I mentioned above, with a tour guide, but it’s always great fun to explore by yourself to see what you find!
The Medina is extensive, so keep to the main thoroughfares if you’re exploring without a guide. It’s pretty easy to get lost and you’ll lose signal regularly when you’re in the middle of the Medina!
Once you’re in the Medina, make sure to visit Souk El Hout Al Kadim. Start at Bab Rouah near the Royal Palace, and make your way through the jewellery quarter. Visit Dar El Oddi, a restored Riad that has been converted into a museum, and visit the Grand Mosque (Jamaa El Kbir). Non-Muslims can’t enter the mosque, but it can be seen from outside and the minaret makes for beautiful photos as you meander through the Medina.
Head to Lebbadi Palace to purchase Moroccan goods like argan oil (great for your hair!), and you can head to the rooftop for great views of the city and the surrounding Rif Mountains. Also in the Medina you’ll find the Museum of Religious Heritage, or Loukach School, built by the commander of Tetouan, Muhammad ibn al-Hajj Omar Loukach, in 1751. In 2011 it was inaugurated as a museum of spiritual heritage, and is worth a quick visit! The inside is beautiful, built with four wings around a courtyard garden.
Royal Palace & Place El Mechouar
While you can’t visit the Royal Palace – since it’s still an active royal residence – you can see it from the outside from Place El Mechouar. It’s an impressive building, and there are four columns around the plaza in an Art Nouveau style, designed by Enrique Nieto, a student of Gaudí.
The site was originally built in the 18th century as the Government Palace (Dar al-Emrat) and was then used as the residence of the High Commissioner of the newly created Spanish Protectorate in Morocco. Established in 1912 by a treaty between France and Spain, the Spanish protectorate consisted of two strips of land in Morocco – one in the north, of which Tetouan was the capital, and one in the north of what is now the disputed territory of Western Sahara – and was under Spanish control until independence in 1956.
After Morocco’s independence, the residence of the High Commissioner was repurposed as a royal palace. It was remodelled in 1988 to add a wall and monumental gate, hiding the residence from public view.
Archaeological Museum
We were unlucky enough to get bad weather while we were in Tetouan, so museums were a great way to escape the rain! However, even if the weather is great during your trip, it’s worthwhile visiting the Archaeological Museum anyway.
Items in the museum reflect excavations that took place in northern Morocco from 1920 until today. These objects reflect the history of Morocco and the wider region around Tetouan during the pre-Islamic periods. The museum exhibits a variety of objects including lanterns, mosaics, inscriptions, memorials, geometric pieces, jewellery and coins. One of the most impressive parts of the museum is the mosaic space, with four of the most beautiful Roman mosaics dating from the second century AD.
Entry to the museum costs only 10 dirham per person (around $1) and the museum is open every day from 10am until 6pm, except Tuesdays.
Church of Our Lady of Victories
Located in the heart of the Ensanche, an area of Tetouan that was constructed during the period of the Spanish protectorate, you’ll find the beautiful Church of Our Lady of Victories. Built in 1919 on Place Moulay El Mehdi and inaugurated in 1926, the church stands out with its impressive Andalusian-Moorish façade. Unfortunately, the church is only open for mass and not for general visits, so unless you wish to attend mass (daily at 6:30pm and Sunday at 11:00am) then you’ll have to settle for admiring the exterior only.
Mellah
You’ll find a ‘Mellah’ in most cities in Morocco – it’s the name traditionally given to the neighbourhood where the Jewish community of the city lives. In Tetouan, it’s pretty obvious when you spot a house where Jewish people historically lived, as they are painted a different colour! This is due to the holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims would wake up for suhur (sometimes also written suhoor) and pre-dawn prayer. Suhur was the last meal eaten before sunrise and the fast until sunset and the meal to break the fast, iftar (or l’ftur). Before alarm clocks and being able to set your own phone alarms, Muslims relied on a musaharati to wake them up for suhur and the pre-dawn prayer. Due to the mixed Jewish and Muslim community in Tetouan, the Muslims of Tetouan painted their doors a different colour to prevent the Jewish community having their doors knocked on before dawn when they didn’t need to wake up for Ramadan!
Tetouan Tanneries
While not as expansive or impressive as the tanneries in Fes, the tanneries of Tetouan are not to be missed! Unlike the tanneries in Fes, these are not surrounded by shops to cater to tourists, so you can explore without being hassled to purchase leather goods. There is a small leather souk near the tanneries if you did want to see what they have available!
Have tea and cake at El Reducto
When you’re in Morocco, you have to go for mint tea! One of the nicest places for a delicious mint tea, plus a tasty slice of cake, is El Reducto. Located in the Medina, El Reducto is a riad with a restaurant that has a rooftop terrace. Just ask for atay banaa3na3 and enjoy your tea!
Take a day trip to Chefchaouen
Tetouan is just over 1 hour from Chefchaouen by car, making it a perfect day trip! There are buses that run between Tetouan and Chefchaouen and take 1h15, with a price of 35 dirham per person (£2.76 or $3.51).
Since we were travelling from Tetouan onwards to Fes and wanted to stop off in Chefchaouen, we opted for comfort and convenience with Daytrip.com. We paid a total of $304 (around £239) for two people in a private car to go from our hotel in Tetouan to our hotel in Fes, with 2.5 hours in Chefchaouen and 1 hour in Ouezzane. This was a perfect way to see Chefchaouen in our own time and not have to worry about working around a bus schedule! It also gave us the opportunity to see the beautiful green city of Ouezzane, another city painted by its Jewish residents, but not nearly as well known as Chefchaouen.
Where to stay in Tetouan
We stayed at the lovely Hotel Al Mandari, located in the El Ensanche area of Tetouan. This is a great 3 star hotel with beautiful views from their rooms! If I stayed at the hotel again, I would absolutely request to book one of the corner balcony rooms, with views of both the nearby Rif Mountains and of the city. Our favourite thing about Al Mandari was definitely the free breakfast – it was DELICIOUS. I would rate it as one of my top hotel breakfasts in Morocco, and that’s saying something!
Rooms at Hotel Al Mandari start at around £170 ($215) for a two night stay in a double room.
On our walking tour of the city, we visited this stunning riad in the heart of the Medina. I would love to stay here the next time I’m in Tetouan! You truly need to stay in a riad at least once when you’re in Morocco, as it’s a truly unique experience. Riad El Manantial dates back to the 19th century and the interior is absolutely spectacular. As with most riads, the interiors of the rooms are all different! Each room is named after a place in Tetouan, such as Feddan (for Feddan Park), Bab Saida and Bab Tout (two of Tetouan’s seven gates to the Medina).
Rooms at Riad El Manantial start at around £125 ($160) for a two night stay in a double room.
How to get to Tetouan
Tetouan by plane
We flew in to Tetouan with Ryanair from Malaga, which was the most ridiculously short flight that I could have blinked and we had arrived! It was one of my favourite kind of flights, aka a ‘time travel flight’, where you arrive at a time that’s before when you were due to take off, due to the time zone change. It’s the small things, right?
Tetouan serves a few airlines, including Ryanair (Alicante, Brussels Charleroi, Madrid, Malaga, Marrakesh, Marseille and Seville), Air Arabia (Amsterdam, Barcelona, Bilbao, Brussels, Madrid and Malaga), Iberia (Malaga), Royal Air Maroc (Al Hoceïma and Casablanca) and TUI fly Belgium (Brussels).
Tetouan Samia Ramen airport is located around 10-15 minutes by car from the city – it’s not far at all! The easiest way to get into the city centre is to grab a taxi from outside the airport. We spent 100 dirham to get to our hotel, which is around £7.90, or $10.
Tetouan by train
Unlike most of Morocco’s main cities, Tetouan is not accessible by train as they don’t have a station! If you are travelling Morocco by train, the closest option would be to take the train to Tangier, and then to take the bus from Tangier to Tetouan.
Tetouan by bus
Tetouan is well connected to the rest of Morocco by bus, with regular routes connecting Tetouan to Tangier, Chefchaouen, Rabat and Fes. Below you can see some examples of how long it takes and the price to get to/from Tetouan from other destinations:
- Tangier to Tetouan: 1h – 1h15, 25 – 30 dirham
- Chefchaouen to Tetouan: 1h15 – 1h50, 35 dirham
- Fes to Tetouan: 4h30 – 7h45, 100 – 170 dirham
- Rabat to Tetouan: 3h30 – 4h15, 70 – 80 dirham
- Casablanca to Tetouan: 5h30 – 7h45, 80 – 90 dirham
- Al Hoceïma to Tetouan: 6h45 – 7h, 110 – 120 dirham
Tetouan by private transfer
You can also do what we did to get from Tetouan to our next stop of Fes, and travel by private transfer! This is one of my favourite ways to see more places when travelling in Morocco, as you can add a variety of stops, rather than just going from point A to point B. When we went from Tetouan to Fes with Daytrip, we added Chefchaouen and Ouezzane as stops along the way. There are lots of options you can add and, if you don’t see the option you want, you can always request a custom route instead!
There is so much to do in Tetouan, so don’t sleep on this underrated city in the north of Morocco!
Let me know in the comments if you have any questions about visiting Tetouan, or other places around Morocco.
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