Cadiz was a short visit as we were passing through. Luckily it is a small city, which allowed us to look around most of it in within a day. Cadiz was one of the cities in Spain that I was looking forward to the most when first planning to visit Spain. However, since coming to Spain other places have really surpassed my expectations, and unfortunately Cadiz did not turn out to be one of them.
We arrived in Cadiz about 11am after getting the train from Jerez (only just catching the train 2 minutes before it left!). Carmen was very impressed with her first experience on a Spanish train and was very excited and happy (she is a big fan of trains if you hadn't realised by now). The trains were very modern, with lots of added extras for passenger comfort including: plug sockets for every passenger, coat hangers by the seats, and fold away tables. It felt very upper class!
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| Carmen looking very happy on the train to Cadiz |
The vast majority of attractions in Cadiz are within the old centre of the city which covers an area of only 1.45 square kilometres. We first saw Puerta de Tierra, followed by the Roman theatre, which we were a bit disappointed with as it was shut and in a bad state of repair. Considering the emphasise that Cadiz tourism does on the oldness of the city it didn't look like it had been well looked after. We also thought that some of the renovations, totally destroyed the original look of the place as well. There are much better places to see this kind of thing around Spain.
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| The rather disappointing Roman Theatre in Cadiz |
The highlight of Cadiz was probably the cathedral though, which was done in a different style to the rest of the cathedrals we had seen in Andalucia so far. The main difference being the addition of a Cupola on top of the cathedral giving it a slightly more Islamic look. It was a nice location for photographs and seemed like the main meeting point within the old centre where locals and tourists gathered to have a meal and a drink in one of the many cafes and restaurants around it.
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| Cadiz Cathedral |
Our next stop was lunch, and as Cadiz is well known for it's fish we decided to visit the market and see some firsthand and hopefully have a taste. The market had a great range of choice and we saw some huge fish! You would have to be there to believe the size of some of the Salmon, swordfish and others we saw. After looking around for a bit, we then found one of the stalls that sold cooked fish and we bought some hake and mackeral to try, both being very very nice!
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| A nice waterfall in one of the parks in Cadiz |
After a nice lunch we were on our way again (you might realise as you read this that we stop quite often; this would be because of our big bags we are lugging around!), headed past the Torre Tavira (Tavira Tower), the highest point in the city, which wasn't actually that high at only 45 metres. Unfortunately, we were unable to get a good shot as it is surrounded by buildings on all sides and the streets are very narrow. Once past the tower we arrived at one of the two castles along the coast of Cadiz; Castillo de Santa Catalina where we went inside and had a look around, it offered some nice views along the coast of Cadiz, with some interesting bits of information about it's history. The castle also displayed a model boat exposition with lots of famous boats throughout history including Cutty Sark, Titanic, HMS Victory and Mary-Rose.
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| View of the bay from Castillo de Santa Catalina |
After the visit of this castle we paid a visit to the other castle in Cadiz; Castillo de San Sebastian, which is located at the end of a natural pier that stretches out into the Atlantic Ocean. There was not a lot to see at this castle as only the outer walls were still partially intact, but it did have some really nice views of the Atlantic and the city.
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| Carmen overlooking the Atlantic by Castillo de San Sebastian |
Our last stop in Cadiz was Plaza Espana, the square where the Monument of the Constitution of 1812 is located. After visiting this we made our way to the bus station to catch the bus to Canos de Meca to meet with a couple of friends and their faithful travel companion Gustav, who we met in Morocco.
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| Monument of the Constitution of 1812 |
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