Ross's and Clare's Travel Adventure
9th April 2019 - 26th May 2019
We arrive in Seville, to only 3 suitcases! Ross’s was still in Madrid. They said it would arrive the next day and that they could send it to the hotel. My suitcase is broken which is a real pain. The hotel in Seville was a bit out of town next to the stadium. When we went to book in and I found I had booked for the next month (same night). This day could get no worse! We got a nice room and the receptionist took pity on us and gave us an upgrade. We had to cancel the night I had booked and lost the money. The next day instead of visiting Seville we waited for the suitcase and headed to the train to Cadiz. The lady opposite us wanted a chat she said Andalusia where she is from is the happiest and friendliest in Spain and Cadiz is the happiest and friendliest place in Andalusia. Looking forward to it.
Cadiz was warm and sunny, I left Ross at the train station and headed off in the wrong direction to get the keys to our apartment. A long walk later I was at the office but had decided Cadiz was lovely. We got to the apartment and it was three floors up no lift!! Very nice apartment made up for the three floors with heavy suitcases. Being Sunday, nothing was open so a long walk to the only supermarket open. Then dinner and enough for the day.
We walked along the beach and visited the fort, which was closed, it did look a bit dangerous. The beach was beautiful white sand and clean water. I am very impressed with the cleanliness of Europe. They are doing so much with conservation and the environment it makes me embarrassed that Australian is so far behind.
We found a street of restaurants just around the corner, this became our favorite place to eat and the tapas were wonderful. We had many lovely meals here and met many people.
Ross’s visa has run out, so we went to the immigration office to have it renewed. We had everything printed, as per website. We waited for an hour and had an interview with a nice man who said we had to pay and then have a police security check so needed to come back after that in a weeks’ time, also bring printouts of a few more things. We asked did we need to wait again, and he said no he would tell the security man that we could come straight through, he did that and we left. A week later the security guy knew nothing… take a number and wait an hour later. We are told Ross had past the police check. We now needed to pay the tax at a bank and then we could come back for the visa, with some more printed documents; by now I am best friends with the guys in the printing shop. “Would we have to wait” “no” so off we went to pay the tax and return the in two day (because the next day was May day and a day off in Europe), when it had been registered. By now we had the bus organised, Ha ha! road works and we kept missing the bus and having to walk a long way. The final trip and we did get in without waiting, but then had to wait as the no waiting had a queue!! Ross go his visa and we are free to stay in Spain.
The cathedral in Cadiz is quite impressive but is not well looked after bits are falling off the roof so the whole roof is netted off. It is the only Cathedral in Spain with marble walls very impressive. Building started in 1722, 116 years passed before it is finished, the time causes a change of style and the tastes due to the different architects. The cathedral begins in the Baroque style, like its ground plan and the interior up to the Rococo frieze and is finished in neoclassical style, in its façade,
towers, domes and the second body of the interior, as well as most of the altarpieces and the high altar.
“Sillería y Coro – The Choir Space”
“In the case of the Cathedral of Cádiz, this space is an extraordinary set full of history, art and symbolism, from the stalls to the bars.
This magnificent wood carving came to Cádiz thanks to the management capacity of Bishop Juan José Arbolí and Acaso, in the middle of the 19th century.
The organ comes from the old cathedral of the Holy Cross and is presumed to have made at the end of the 16th century or the beginning of the 17th.
The crypt is huge and almost empty. Still very impressive.
We were lucky enough one evening to come across a Spanish festival one evening. the ladies were all dressed up in their finery looking very colourful and having lots of fun
We keep walking through the markets and every time I am so taken with the hams. So many of them and they look wonderful. Expensive but wonderful. We did buy me a new suitcase.
We also found many fabulous places to eat and drink
We took a day trip to Gibraltar, we loved it. Very English more than in England. We drove to Gibraltar via the longer route passing the Official clock tower for Spain 4 minutes slow we are told!! The White Village is the prettiest in Spain and glistened in the sunshine on a hilltop. We saw red and white Bulls and lots of storks and lots of other birds another great thing about the lack of pollution so many birds. Going into Gibraltar we had to show our passports to the British, but the Spanish could not care less. To get to the town we drove across the Air Force Base. My father was stationed there when I was about 5 or 6 and I remember the letters I got from him. We had a lovely walk around seeing the old buildings and the English post boxes and telephone boxes. The telephone boxes have a joke that they are different from the English ones in that they work!! We watched the guard marching in front of governments offices.
After an hour of free time we meet up and got into a big bus with others for the trip to the peak. Ross and I were slightly hysterical as the bus was advertising donate to Alzheimer’s, it was labelled the Alzheimer’s bus. As everyone got on, we thought that it was aptly labelled (we felt young!!), we checked, and we were on the correct bus. We drove up the peak to St Michael's cave. Stopping on the way to look at the scenery. ave stayed overnight!!
St Michael's cave is a large cave which they have done up for tourists with lots of coloured lights and music. Sadly, the number of people are damaging the stalactites and stalagmites making them very brown to black in colour (they needed the lights to disguise the colour). There was a stalagmite that had fallen in a earth quake the cross section had been polished and the different weather patterns could be discerned by the thickness and colour of the circles, I have not seen this before and was intrigued. Outside the cave were the apes they do not have tails there are about 300 of them and they are not native to Gibraltar being brought over from Africa by pirates and as stowaways. The apes live in about 10 troops one close to the cave they are always there for the tourists. We did not get to the top of the peak for which I was disappointed, but we were only there for a day. A vote was taken and the other 4 people in our group voted for a return to Cadiz. The highlight of the return was a late lunch at a “truck stop”. It was packed One huge table must have had every policeman in the region eating at it. We had Ciccarone’s a dish of roast pork which is chopped up small and then deep fried. Fabulous as you feel your arteries thickening with every bite, not to be eaten every day, it is a specialty of the restaurant. We also had the 3-course set menu (a choice for every course but not many) I had local dishes and we had eaten to much for dessert so had coffee, Ross was allowed a beer for his dessert. It was a great day we should have stayed overnight!!
We are enjoying walking around the old town of Cadiz. the weather is perfect and there are so many lovely old buildings and sights to see.
The parks here are lovely, covered with bougainvillea and other lovely colourful flowers
There were lots of churches for me to pop into, while leaving Ross to a beer
The rest of our stay in Cadiz was eating drinking and watching the tourist, we had the local snail dish called carioles made in a with curry, herb and wine broth tiny little snails but very tasty. I enjoyed Cadiz it was a very easy place to live, sun and beaches, food and drink plus nice people. I also took a couple of fun photos