Advertisement
Published: February 21st 2009
Done with Seville! We had really enjoyed our time there, now it was time to head to Granada. It was only about 300km, but we were going the indirect way over the coast, planning to stop at Cadiz and Gibraltar and maybe Malaga on the way.
To get the most out of the day, we checked out at 5:45am, and were on the road at 6am. One nice thing about having a baby is we are now very used to being up at that time, so it was really easy to get ourselves organised to leave on time! Like the last day trip - traffic was non-existent, fog was maximal, and we flew along the fantastic roads to Cadiz.
Cadiz
Cadiz is a little town on the coast, originally founded by the Phoenicians, and is the oldest city still standing in Western europe! Reading our Lonely Planet during our drive, we discovered that this city was once Spain's largest port, with 3/4 of the trading occurring at this port. The city was also the base of operations used by Hannibal (from Carthage in tunisia) to conquer Spain. Oh, and Christopher Columbus set sail from here to discover America.
Church in Cadiz
The palm trees give this place a completely different feel!So you see, tiny little town, huge amount of history.
Having frozen our little tuccusses (tucci?) off in Seville, I had already started having visions of going to a seaside town, basking in the warmth, having fish and chips at a port, looking over the fishing ships... alas, Cadiz was not quite like that.
Cadiz is situated on a long spit, which severely restricts its population (about 130,000). It is a very charming city, with gorgeous old plazas and buildings, and no signs of modern CBD-like buildings. Quite a relaxed town. As it is near the coast, there are palm trees everywhere, and you begin to feel like you're on holiday even as you drive towards the city.
Being on a long spit means - yes you guessed it - narrow thoroughfare over the water to get to the city. Which meant traffic! Hooray! I felt right at home, I'd been missing the Sydney traffic.
It was 8:30am, which means the sun had only just got up. It also meant that most people were only just waking up and contemplating going to work. We had found a great park right outside the main town square.
The Cathedral
Oh for a wide angle lens... We think it was a legal spot - there were other cars parked next to us. And there were these disturbing signs posted around with a diagonal line across them, which must mean that you can't do
something in the area. Hopefully it meant no soliciting, or no skateboards, or something.
We hopped out of our car, took a deep breath... what? cold air? why? it's meant to be warm? Grumbling under my breath, we pulled our our heavy jackets and put them on. So much for my plans to sunbathe. I was so not going to get a tan on this trip.
Cadiz has got a beautiful church on Plaza de San Francisco. Refused to pay the 7 Euro each to get in though - by now we were getting a bit tired of seeing insides of churches. I guess if you are really really really into the art, you'd probably get something out of it, but for the uninitiated and uneducated, they all start to look the same.
Instead, we walked around the city a bit, stopping to eat breakfast at a cafe in a cute little alleyway. Sahara was happy because she got her
Sahara and Chocolate
She loves her choc... churros in chocolate. I know some parents out there are thinking how terrible we must be because our child was pretty much living on chocolate food forms while in Spain!
We also went to see the old markets that were marked as a 'must see' in our guide. Turned out to be a big vegetable and fruit market. Looked strangely like the farmers' markets we get back in Australia. Maybe we missed something, but I really didn't see anything 'must see' about them!! On the plus side, we did buy the yummiest oranges I have ever tasted in my life!
Cadiz also features an old fort that sits out alone in the sea, with a narrow land bridge. Walked the grueling 400m to it, discovered we couldn't get in, then walked all the way back! The land bridge was quite low, and the crashing waves kept dousing us with spray as we walked, so by the time we got back to the mainland we were cold and wet! Still it was nice to see Cadiz from 400m away. 😊
We also got to see the beach, which we'd been looking forward to! Guess what - the beach
was nothing to write home about. I keep forgetting when visiting beaches in foreign countries that we are terribly spoilt in Australia with our fabulous beaches - so whenever we visit beaches in other countries, we tend to be unimpressed with them. Terrible parents that we were, we didn't even let Sahara go frolick in the sand.
(Just so you know - in the 8 years that Catherine and I have been married, we have been to the beach twice, and only once in the water! Poor Sahara is going to have to work hard to convert us!)
It was now getting close to 1pm, and we decided it was time to head on to our next stop. We were really glad that we'd seen Cadiz - even though it had not turned out to be what we'd thought it would, it was great to see another part of Spain!
Gibraltar
OK so we've all heard of Gibraltar. Famous for 'the Rock of Gibraltar', which was one of the two 'Pillars of Hercules' according to the Greek myth. Also often associted with the 'Straits of Gibraltar', which is the narrow channel between Africa and Europe.
But did you know that this is an British territory? We didn't! So we were quite surprised to read (as we were driving to Gibraltar) that we would suddenly need to pass immigration, use English pounds, and speak English! Apparently the Spanish have recently tried to lay claim to Gibraltar, however the locals refused and prefer to stay an English territory. So there is some bad blood over this issue.
This may be the reason why, as we drove, that we NEVER saw any signs to Gibraltar!! We'd see signs to towns that were beyond Gibraltar, and before, but never to Gibralatar! It's like the Spanish are pretending it doesn't exist. Thankfully Brenda (our GPS) kept us on the right roads. We knew we were heading the right way when we suddenly went over a hill and saw this rather impressive looking Rock, which HAD to be THE rock...
We were going to Gibraltar for a couple of reasons. One was to see the Barbary Macaques, the only wild monkey found in Europe. Another was to see the rock itself. And hey, it was on the way.
It was actually quite pleasant to suddenly be back in
Cadiz from 400m away
So this is what Cadiz looks like... an English speaking country again. As Catherine is the Spanish speaker, up till this point, she'd been doing all the talking, and you can imagine how tortuous that would have been for me! But hey, suddenly I too could talk to the guys in the store, chat to the waiters, ask people for directions - GREAT!
Not so good was having to pay in English pounds. If anything is more expensive than Euros, it's pounds.
The Rock is actually a large nature reserve - we drove up to the top, parked on the steepest road I've ever parked on - had to reverse park, was terrifying! - and walked around trying to see the monkeys. No problems there - they pretty much swarm you! Our lonely planet had warned us that they will snatch stuff from us, so we had secured all our cameras, wallets, bags, Sahara, etc. When the monkeys came out to say hi to us, was a bit weird at first - I'm not a big fan of strange animals jumping onto my shoulder - and thankfully they didn't - but some of the other tourists thought that was a hoot, so we enjoyed watching
the monkeys make monkeys out of the tourists, while we took pics.
The Rock also has some gorgeous limestone caves, but seriously, seen one limestone cave, seen them all, so we kept moving. It also had a Moorish tower - which was this lonely structure standing up on the top of the mountain with an English flag flying high. Got some great views from there.
You also can trek the Rock, there are several recommended walks possible. Alas, we had the pram, so it was not an option for us, but realistically, even if we hadn't had the pram, I doubt we would have taken the effort - too lazy!
Ate dinner at an English pub - Catherine had fish and chips, and I had a stew - was kinda nice to eat familiar food again.
And that was it! Sun was setting, and it time to get back on the road, head to our hotel in Granada and sleep!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.22s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 21; qc: 80; dbt: 0.1217s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb
