Tetouan Medina — Al-Andalus Lost Secret

Your journey in Tetouan begins on Avenue Mohamed V, the official starting point of your outdoor escape game 'Al-Andalus Lost Secret'. This main thoroughfare, built from 1912 under the Spanish protectorate, marks the gateway to the ancient Medina from the modern quarter. With its standardized width of 30-40 meters, typical of Spanish colonial urban planning, it offers a striking contrast to the preserved medieval urban structure you are about to discover. The route will then lead you to the Bab al-Okla Gate, a mandatory crossing to access the eight narrative sites of the game, each containing a part of the coded register left by anonymous Andalusian calligraphers of the 14th-15th centuries.

Having passed through Bab al-Okla, you enter the heart of Tetouan's Medina, founded in the 14th century by Andalusian refugees after the fall of Granada in 1492. This medina, with an approximate area of 1.5 km², is recognized as one of Morocco's best-preserved, inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1997 for its unique Andalusian and Moroccan architecture. Your first puzzle awaits you in a traditional hammam, whose typical structure — changing room, cold room, warm room, hot room with hypocaust — reflects the Andalusian heritage. The characteristic tiles and zellige of preserved Andalusian art contain crucial clues to the Andalusian register.

The path then leads you to Souk el-Fouki, a traditional market located in the heart of the medina, whose covered structure dates from the 15th-16th centuries. Here, sellers of spices, textiles, and artisans perpetuate Andalusian traditions, grouped in galleries with shops of goldsmiths, dyers, and bakers. This is a key narrative stage where you will explore a merchant fondouk and a dyer's workshop, places that witnessed the transmission of Andalusian know-how for five centuries, from 1492 to 1992, under the aegis of the Wattasid and Saadian dynasties who welcomed the exiles.

Your quest for 'The Andalusian Cipher' takes you to the Medina Mosque, or Jama al-Kebir, built in the 15th century after the arrival of Andalusian refugees. Its carved wooden door, adorned with characteristic Andalusian geometric motifs, and its Moroccan-style minaret with zellige and worked stucco, conceal a cipher. Then, a public fountain (Sabil) in the Medina, with its typical 15th-16th century Islamic geometric patterns (arabesques, zellige), will reveal further fragments of the coded register, essential to understanding this lost secret.

Throughout this historical scavenger hunt in the Tetouan medina, you will visit eight specific workshops: hammam, fondouk, mosque, dyer's workshop, goldsmith's courtyard, oven, library, and fountain. These sites are not just backdrops; they are guardians of an invaluable heritage, that of the collective Andalusian refugees who made Tetouan a bastion of their culture after the departure of Boabdil, the last sultan of Granada. By deciphering each clue, you are not just solving a puzzle; you are reliving the history of the Tanger-Tetouan region and helping to bring back to life a Moroccan Andalusian heritage that has defied time.