July 25 Cadiz

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July 25

Today we had a very pleasant beach-town day. In the morning we made the walk into the old town of Cadiz. Without luggage, and losing elevation rather than gaining it as we went, it proved to be a fairly short walk. Also, it's abut 7 or 8 degrees cooler here than it was in Madrid and Seville, so that helps with the walking.

We walked along the seawall as far as the cathedral, which we didn't enter (having just been to Seville we've already seen as impressive a cathedral as we're going to). Then we wandered along what the tourist map calls “lively shopping areas”, buying a beach towel (essential equipment in Cadiz) along the way, until we got to the tip of Cadiz. The lively shopping areas seem to specialize in clothing and shoe stores. The peninsula actually points north-west, so the tip of Cadiz is actually a view across the bay to more of Spain. (Our hotel is along the south-west coast of the peninsula so if you want to look across the ocean in the direction of Africa you go out on our beach and look left. About 100 km or so across the Atlantic would be Tangiers, Morocco). Our walk passed through many pretty gardens with lots of places to sit (some even in the shade) with ocean views and interesting plants and trees. The most impressive are huge Ficus elastica (picture attatched.). Many of you will know them as “rubber plants which we grow as house plants. When you cut the stems they have a white gooey sap. If they are outside in a place where it doesn't freeze they get huge. They don't need much water so are perfect for where we have been in Spain.

We then wandered back in the direction of Plaza de España (every town in Spain has a Plaza de España), and caught the handy #1 bus back to our hotel. A light lunch of calamaries and fries (sic), a short siesta, and then we were ready for the beach.

Our hotel is on the Santa Maria del Mar beach which is is generally regarded as not as good as the Victoria beach next to it. So to see what all the fuss about Victoria (often referred to as the best beach in Spain) is about we hopped on the #1 bus again, and rode a couple of kilometers so we could hit Victoria beach at its most popular spot, in front of the Hotel Victoria. As far as we could tell, the only difference between our beach and Victoria beach is size. The quality of sand, the water, and the surf are all exactly the same. But Victoria beach is huge,both in terms of length and width. Even at high tide there's still plenty of sand to go around, which is saying something as there are thousands of people. Where Santa Maria del Mar has one beach bar, Victoria has one ever couple of hundred metres. Also there is a very nice prominade along the beach for strolling. So, we get it - a truly great beach. We went in for a dip, bobbed along with the gentle swells, then walked the prominade in the direction of home, stopping once for a beach view beer.

Later that evening we popped out to the restaurant/bar next to the hotel and the proprietor talked us into the speciality of the day, a grilled whole fish (looked like mackerel) with filleted sardines in garlic and oil as an appitizer. Yummy and cheap.

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Photos

Beach walk to downtown
The walk along the beach to town is interesting and you get a good view of the old area of town

Cathedral
The Cathedral has a yellow dome so is hard to miss.

lively shopping area.
Both the locals and the tourists shop in these areas so the streets are busy.

Lotto ticket sales
No kiosks just a board or in some cases the sales people pin strips of tickets to their shirts and walk around (esp. through out door cafes) to sell their tickets. The ticket seller is the guy in the orange shirt trying to stay out of the sun. The female cutomer in this picture is wearing a popular style of sandles. Jim calls them gladiator sandles.

Fiscu elastica (aka rubber tree)
These are huge trees with thick trunks and huge spans. They are common in all the city parks we have been in.