Cadiz Saturday 23rd May

Cortes statue 1812

Behind Cortes statue

Jacarandas behind the lock sculpture

The cathedral

The 5 metre tall monstrose

Ronalda's ecco huomo

The buskers near our table

A lovely spot for lunch ( and a birthday party)

One of the long and narrow streets in the shopping district

Many buildings have beautiful tiled foyers behind heavy studded wooden doors

Cadiz occupies a small peninsula in Spain with the Atlantic on three sides.  It was a fortified city and the old section is quite small and compact.  Its most striking feature is the incredibly long and narrow cobbled streets full of high street stores and what seemed like a disproportionate number of pharmacies.  Oh, and and there are lots of pubs too. 

There are four recommended strolls the visitor can take during the day  The longest follows the fortifications and the shortest takes in the political history of the area.  We ended up doing parts of the other two: the historical and the shippers' route, but weren't overly worried if we deviated from our leisurely and pleasantly shady walk.

Our first stop was the statue to Cortes which was erected in 1812.  It's a magnificent white stone statue, almost as elaborate at the back as it is from the front - but it's hard to feel any pleasure in it when you consider the havoc he and his men wreaked in South America.

There are other more modern statues near the port.  The most interesting one was a massive open padlock, with the hasp in the shape of a nib.

Our next stop was Cadiz Cathedral, which has an elegant white stone facade and two bell towers.   They hold multiple bells which give a carillon like chime on the hour.  It may have cost us 5Euro each to go in but the entry price included the audio guide and gave a lot of background information, so we didn't begrudge it.  Besides it was lovely and cool inside.  The floors are ornately mosaic'd marble and the ceilings have elaborate carvings.  There are nets suspended below some of these ceiling sculptures and fragments of 'stuff' have been caught in them- no doubt saving people from injury.

Inside we saw: the gorgeous religious statues, unusually carved by a female sculptor named Ronalda in the 1600s, the solid silver Monstrose (sp) - all 5 metres of it, and the crypt where the mummified remains of St Victoria are preserved under a wax mask, and the tomb of famous Spanish composer de Falla lies.

We stopped for a beer and would have liked to stay for tapas, but the absence of an English menu made it too hard.  So we wandered across the plaza to another bar (which did have a menu we could read) but chose the daily special anyway: a delightful lunch of freshly grilled fish and salad - and another beer.   With perfect timing, a busker arrived and played classical guitar music while we ate our bread with olive oil and vinegar.

We saw countless families promenading through the plaza during the Saturday afternoon and its very clear how important family is in Spain.  I indulged in a little people watching of the children's birthday party being held a few tables over.    I'm sure it involved at least 5 generations of the family all dressed up in their finery and I watched cousins playing with each other (except the older ones who were too busy on their phones), glamorously dressed mamas and aunts and proud papas wearing polo neck shirts and taking photos of anything that moved.

We continued our leisurely exploration of the town after lunch, admiring the narrow laneways and the beautiful tiled entrances behind heavy wooden studded doors. 

We left Cadiz harbour at 7pm and are currently going back through the straits of Gibraltar in order to re-enter the Mediterranean.  Captain Jose estimates we will pass Gibraltar at around 11:30pm.
I spent the early part of the evening watching the floor show put on by the ship's entertainment staff, some of whom we know quite well from their hosting duties in the trivia quizzes over the last month.  I admit to feeling like a proud aunt as these talented 20 somethings sang and danced their hearts out us.  They have given us four different shows (doing an early and a late show each time).