Above are scenes from our rest day in Cadiz. I’m testing the ‘gallery’ feature, but on my draft view, all these photos look truncated. I may need to revert to the one at a time upload procedure. We were a week too early for the sailing, but the city was plenty lively with the ‘South’ festival in progress (the skulls are part of the festival). The lion is the mail slot on the post office, and the street scene is taken from our room – on the much quieter Sunday evening.
Today was a semi rest day. The via Augusta officially starts in Cadiz and skirts the bay in a long arc , part of which we already walked. So not being purists, we took the bus back to where we caught it (more or less 😁) two days ago, and started walking again. It was a pleasant walk through a ‘natural park’ as they are known here – basically cycle tracks and boardwalks through the salt marshes. There was even a cafe at the visitor centre, which was a definite bonus!
The city of El Puerto de Santa Maria is an interesting town. The “El” is due to it being given a royal charter a few hundred years ago, and depending which Wikipedia article you read, it was the starting point for Columbus’s first voyage to the Americas. For sure it’s where his ship (actually the ship that he borrowed) was from – hence the name I guess. Today it’s glory years are in the past, and it has that cool decrepit vibe that New Orleans has. Lots of ornate Palacios which need an injection of cash, but with the proximity of Cadiz, a major tourist and event destination, the public euros are currently going there. However, looking at the satellite images, there’s lots of personal wealth in the suburbs – whereas Cadiz is almost exclusively apartments.
It was quite doable to continue through to Jerez in one day – about 23 km – but two short days to enjoy both the towns was more appealing. Besides, we are staying in Palacios in both towns. 😄
2saunter 