Andalusia Day Eight - All Things Cádiz Old Town

Sunday 24 October

Up and out for a full day's exploration of Cádiz today - a Ruth treat.  Cádiz is an old city, probably founded by the Phoenicians and oozes maritime/naval history - it is still the home of the Spanish Navy.  

We headed through the Old Town and onto the city walls, with its resident canons.  

Park Genovés is a beautifully planted space with huge topiaries and finds such as Los Niños Bajo el Paraquas, the Children Under the Fountain. 

We also found this strange exhibit which looks to have been a natural rock which has been turned into a fountain/bridge walkway.  It was fun to walk through the rock and get splashed in the process.

Cádiz, as many cities do, has a fair amount of tiled fountains, and we were amused by the pigeons this one had attracted.

Cádiz's beach, the Playa de la Caleta, is a shallow harbour and was busy late October.  It was too tempting not to have a paddle!

The south end of it is protected by the Castle of San Sebastian, and it seemed churlish not to walk up the walkway to see how far we could get.

This far.

Next on the Cádiz tour was the cathedral.  Cádiz cathedral was probably the newest cathedral of our trip.  It was built in the 18th century in a largely baroque style, with rococo and neoclassical elements.  As usual, these buildings blow you away with their soaring towers, vast spaces and catholic symbolism.  But, if you look closely in this cathedral, you can see the netting that is slung across up high.  Initially, I thought this was to stop birds invading the space of the worshipers, but, on inspection, it's stopping small bits off the roof falling onto visitors' heads.

We then climbed the bell tower and and enjoyed the awesome views.

By this time it was nearly 1500 and we'd left it a bit late to find lunch, but we managed.  Then we wandered the backstreets which, as ever, are fascinating.

We ambled some more and ended up on a street bar for supper.  And, just in case I thought I'd get bored, I had a crossword with me! 

Andalusia Day Seven - Seville to Cádiz via Arcos de la Frontera

Saturday 23 October 

We managed to drive out of the Seville labyrinth of narrow, one way roads without trauma and soon were driving south to Cádiz.  As our Cádiz property wasn't available until mid afternoon - and we were receiving such poor comms from the AirBnB host I wasn't 100% sure it was going to happen - we decided to detour via Arcos de la Frontera.

Arcos de la Frontera is one of the famed pueblos blancos, 'white villages', of Andalusia.  We arrived just before the main church shut at the Plaza del Calbildo and paid a few Euros to stick our head inside.  Pretty much everything else was shut, which wasn't a surprise.

We followed signs down to the parador (viewpoint).

Perched on top a limestone ridge, the views down to the River Guadelte and reservoir are amazing.  

We had a leisurely tapas lunch then headed down to Cádiz.  If my holiday destination isn't on the coast, I try to at least make an effort to swing by the sea to get a few lung fulls of maritime air.  This time we were going one better and spending a couple of nights in this port/city.

Cádiz is on a narrow peninsula of land and approached from the North across some stunning bridges.  I love this photo I took somewhat randomly - the pillars are lined up and displays its beautiful design. 

We had finally heard from our AirBnB host, so had details of where to park.  However it was much easier said than done to find it.  Although our garage was just outside of the Old City, and the streets were wide and straight, there were huge one way systems in place and we got caught heading south west on a road off which we couldn't turn.  At one stage I thought we'd be going back over the bridge!  We managed to dive off before this happened and eventually found our garage.  Our accommodation was on the fair side of 'OK' but fortunately we were only there for 2 nights.  

We headed out quite quickly and, as our AirBnB was inside the Old City, it was a mere stroll to one of the palm fringed plazas.

We headed down to the shore for sunset.  It's October and I'm wearing shorts - bliss.

 

Andalusia Day Six - Tile Heaven

Friday 22 October

Today we started by exploring our neighbourhood with its cobbled, narrow streets, pavement cafes, plazas and churches.  We stuck our head into the Church of Santa Catalina to get our daily dose of ornate religious decor.

After this we came across the Case de Pilatos which was a magnificent find.  This palace, of Italian Rennaisance design, also has Mudejar elements akin to other other Andalusian palaces/churches we'd seen.  So it has a Moorish feel but the garden has marble figurines giving it the Italian look that the owner of the time wanted.

The highlight of this building has to be the tiling.  The azulejo, Spanish glazed tiles, are amazing and, with 150 different designs, one of the largest collection in the world.  The courtyard's walls are ablaze with these tiles, each a slightly different design in glorious blues, greens golds and purples.  Absolutely stunning.

Look at this staircase!

And, just in case you thought I was only interested in tiles, I found a sundial albeit sadly tucked away in a corner.

Once tile-sated, we wandered back down to the Parc de Maria Luisa.  Oooh, more tiles.

We stuck our head into the Museum of Art and Popular Customs, but, sadly, the advertised costume exhibit was closed so we didn't linger.  Nearby was the Plaza de España so we strolled around this again, people watching and enjoying a bit of flamenco.

And we rounded off the day with a stroll by the river, and the Torre del Oro, as the sun set, before heading for supper.

Andalusia Day Five - Alcázar and Plaza de España

Thursday 21 October

Today we visited the amazing Alcázar of Seville.  Once known as the al-Qasr-al-Muriq, it was built as a Royal Palace for Peter of Castille on the site of an alcazar, a residential fortress.  It exhibits much of the Mudéjar style of the Iberian peninsula, combining Romanesque, Gothic and Renaissance elements.  Its architecture, gardens, tiles etc are amazing.

Inside the layout, colours, use of light, water etc was the magnificent Moorish style I love.

Imagine your staircase like this!

One of the rooms had the most amazing tiled map.  South is up in case you're interested.

This was the baths, built into the lower ground floor.

And beautifully designed themed gardens with fountains, ponds, laid out planting etc.

And I found 'my' gate (it has the initials RA on it in case you can't zoom in).

We then walked down to the Plaza de España.  This was built for the Ibero-American exhibition of 1929 and includes in its Renaissance style, a semi circular canal for which you can hire rowing boats.  I've never seen a shorter circuit for a rowing boat!

Around the walkway it had a series of tiles, in alphabetical order of region, showing a map and regional highlights.  Such amazing tiling.