May 7 - Cádiz, Spain

I'm going to apologize in advance for writing so much, but we had a lovely time and these posts and photos, some of which may be boring if you weren't there, help me to remember what we did.

Today we were in Cádiz,  believed by most people to be the oldest continuously inhabited  city in western Europe.  It was founded by the Phoenicians some 3100 years ago.  Some legends say that Hercules was the founder.  The city is at the southwestern corner of Spain and is a peninsula.  Just in the last few months a new bridge costing 625,000,000€ was opened to ease the traffic flow to the mainland of Spain.  The bridge is dramatic and evidently the second longest in Europe.

the bridge from our balcony

We were supposed to take a  tour today but after yesterday’s long march we decided to ditch the tour and do our own thing.  We had just a few thousand of our fellow cruisers in port.  Docked around us were the Queen Mary 2, the Königsdam, Star Breeze (one of Seabourn’s old “little sisters”), and the Sea Dream Yacht Club.  Our original thought was to take a HoHo ride around town but the queue was exceedingly long.  That turned out to be great for us.  We encountered a taxi driver named Diego who named a good price for a tour of Cádiz so off we went.  We have been here before so we have seen many of the sights.  Diego was wonderful! Once he discovered that I could speak Spanish he seemed totally delighted.  He took us through streets that no bus could ever go and that I doubt most cruise passengers have ventured into. 

He took us around the sea wall which has been used in many films to serve as the Malecón, the famous promenade in Havana.  Along there we saw a building which was filmed in a James Bond movie as the palace of Fidel Castro.  Across the street from that is a type of magnolia tree which is more than 475 years old.  Touching a living thing that old is kind of awesome.  We got our fix of religion too because we stopped at several little churches.  One of them has one of the few frescoes ever painted by Picasso.  Since Cádiz is in Andalucía they really celebrate Semana Santa, the week between Palm Sunday, with many processions.  The churches we visited had beautiful statues of the Virgin Mary and other saints dressed in magnificent robes woven of silver and gold.  These are carried out during that week in the various processions. 

 

This building served as Castro's palace in movies

I put this in so you could see the size of the trunk of this tree!

That's a branch we're holding on to

We stopped in the Plaza de San Antonio with beautiful old houses which retained some of the architectural influence of the Moors.  Diego took us into the interior courtyard of one which reminded us of the courtyards in the Alhambra in Granada.  The place has a restaurant on the ground floor which is somehow connected to his family.  If we are ever back here in the evening it looked like a lovely place to try.

 

Church on the Plaza de San Antonio

Look at the beautiful tilework and moorish style arches on this house on the plaza

The interior courtyard

Us in front of the staircase in the lovely courtyard

Diego was an interesting character.  He told us a lot about the immigrants.  Evidently several years ago, Cádiz had a very high crime rate.  The authorities did  a study and found that 76% was being committed by illegal immigrants coming from North Africa.  A referendum was held and it was decided that this would be stopped.  Now when illegals are found they are asked if they have a job and money to support themselves.  If the answer is no, they are given a bag of food and ticket back to North Africa.  Crime has fallen to an almost non-existent level.    

Another interesting thing he told us about was rent control in the old city.  There the houses are three or four stories and very narrow containing usually 3 or 4 apartments.  Under the Franco régime rent controls were imposed so the tenants in those apartments were given essentially life-long contracts at the original rent.  As an example Diego told us that his 91 year old grandmother lives in an apartment that has several hundred square meters (huge by European standards) and only pays 50€ a month rent.  He said her landlord can’t wait for her to die so he can tear down the building, rebuild with 8 or 10 apartments in the same space and rent each for 500 or 600€ per month.  The problem some of the owners encounter is that when they tear down and begin to rebuild, they often find artifacts from as early as the Phoenician period and then have to put everything on hold until the authorities decide what to do with these historical relics.

Well, I’ve rambled on enough.  It was a wonderful day.  Diego told us he loves to cook and he gave us his phone number.  He told us the next time we come to Cádiz to give him a call and he would invite us to his home to eat a paella.  I don’t know that we’d take him up on that, but we’ll definitely call him to take us around.    

Oh, one other he thing he did.  Al has been taking along the same walking stick that we bought a bunch of years ago in Montserrat, Spain.  It’s the one you see him with in the photos I’ve included. Diego gave it a name.  He called it “Don Pepe.”  So that’s the name of the stick from now on.