Cádiz

Gisela and Reiner asked us to work on Saturday because most of the rooms were changing guests on that day, so we took off work Sunday and Monday. Sunday we spent lazying around the house: Perching in the swimming pool, Skyping with y’all, and making travel plans (Alan has some serious ants in his pants about Italy). On Monday we went to Cádiz.

We were excited to learn that during twice a day on weekdays the bus to Cádiz passes right at the end of the road where we live. So we did that. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a very good understanding of the layout of the city, so we spent the first two hours upon our arrival wandering up and down a road that was unlabeled the whole way, but according to passersby changes names three times throughout its length. We ran into a beach, but that didn’t explain very much, as Cádiz is pretty much an island, thanks to erosion, only connected to mainland Spain by man-made bridges.

 Cádiz’s southern beach, which we had originally thought was the western beach.

We decided on a Cathedral landmark a ways off of the track of supermarkets, banks, and public parks we now knew well, and finally headed away from what we later learned was the new part of Cádiz, boring and cultureless. But the old city center was pretty! We found ourselves among the windy, narrow streets and Cathedrals we were expecting.

 Our first stop was the Torre Tavira. It is an old city watchtower, one of the remaining 127 of the original 160, that has been converted into a view point for tourists, complete with a camera obscura show. The show was short, and in very quickly-spoken Spanish and English, but it was worth the Euros to stand around a horizontal screen and be shown via mirrors a live view of Cádiz. We got our bearings and had a chance to spy on the terraces of the unfortunate neighbors of the tower.

View from the Torre Tavira of the Cádiz Cathedral

Cádiz is famous for its fried fish. So our next stop was a freideria (literally “fried food shop”). It was packed. After glaring at all the gaditanos (people who live in Cádiz) who we thought were butting in line, we eventually noticed that people were taking numbers and followed suit. About half an hour later, we walked out of the freideria with a ¼ kilo each of fried shrimp, fried squid, and a mix of fried seafood recommended by the shop. We picnicked outside on a plaza bench.

Hellooooo, whole shrimp.

Hellooooooo, whole squid.

Hellooooo, grease-induced belly ache.