Happy Halloween! There doesn’t seem to be much Halloween activity here in Jerez other than at a few bars who are trying to cash in on the American trade. We wake up to a Halloween-y kind of day, dense fog. We eat our breakfast slowly trying to see if the sun will burn off the fog. No luck. We decide to leave for Cadiz anyway. Opposite to what we are used to in the Bay Area the fog burns off as we approach the coast. By the time we get to Cadiz the sun is shining!
Cadiz has a feel to it that I would imagine you would get in South American cities or Havana in its day. It is quite tropical. We reach the city with no problem, find an underground parking facility and emerge near a tourist information center. We walk to the first large square which houses an attractive city hall.
We make our way to the cathedral. It’s always a good place to start. The cathedral was built in the span of over 100 years starting in 1776 on the ruins of the prior church which had burnt down in the 16th century. So what started out as baroque ended up being neo-classical in design. There are lots of pictures of saints here but they are more modern day and Spanish than my data base (old worn out piece of paper) allows for. We look about. The walls of the church do not collapse even though John is there.
Next we visit the Museo de Cadiz. It is set in a very pleasant plaza. They have interesting neolithic, Phoenician and Roman artifact collections. There is also an immense statue of Trajan recovered nearby. Trajan was the first Roman Emporor born in Iberia. Upstairs there are exhibitions of painting by Spanish painters. I am a little art-ed out by this time in our trip.
But I am never tired of trying to find a reasonable lunch. We wander into a nearby plaza and find a cafe. We order fried baby squid and clams with white wine and garlic. They are both pretty good. We entertain ourselves listening to snatched of various conversations and trying to help a German couple order what they want.
We take a nice stroll back along the Bay of Cadiz. The plants and trees are very large and rather exotic. We find that we are actually quite a bit further away from the car than we had anticipated. We stroll by the gigantic cruise ships whose guests have clogged the streets of Cadiz today. Finally we reach our parking garage.
Another day without dinner. We can’t seem to get this right.