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Cádiz, Spain
Weather: Slightly overcast at first, bright and sunny after breakfast
Another morning where we had to wake Callum up!! We were due to dock in Cádiz at 9am and the ship was scheduled to leave at 3.30pm, so not an awful lot of time to explore if you left it too late.
Weather was a little overcast but we were hopeful the sun would break through. We’d finished breakfast about 8.45am so headed straight up to Deck 19 (on top of the Planet Bar) to see our arrival into Cádiz. The city looked amazing – very unlike any other Spanish city we’d been to.
We went ashore about 9.45am in the end and decided to follow the 90 minute walking tour in our guide book. Callum was itching to try the HOHO bus, but in hindsight, we were glad we stuck to the walking tour (the HOHO bus could only go around the edge of the city as the streets were all very narrow).
Our starting point was the Place de España – the huge memorial dedicated to the Constitution (it is its 200th Anniversary this year) which was no more than 100 yards from where the ship docked.
From here, we walked down the narrow streets to the Calle Honduras which hugged the sea walls. I felt sure I was going to go flying … the marble pavement was still wet from overnight rain and flip flops weren’t the best choice of footwear!)
There are some amazing dragon trees in the Alameda Apodaca … ginormous! We carried on and walked through the Parque Genoves where trees and flowers were just starting to bloom. There were quite a few Seville Orange trees (complete with oranges) and the conifers were very ornately shaped into spirals. Quite a bit of squawking was going on above our heads and we saw the green parakeets busy building their nests high up in the palm trees.
At the other end of the park, we headed down Calle Sacremento, heading back into the heart of the old town. The streets are really narrow … no marked pavements so pedestrians, cars and mopeds all battle it out for position.
About half way down this street is the Torre Tavira, the highest viewpoint in Cádiz, and we decided to climb it. It was also home to a Cámera Obscura and neither Jon nor I had seen one in operation before, so were quite curious what it was all about.
We climbed the 173 steps to the viewing platform at the top and the views over the city were amazing.
We were then called down to the room where the Cámera Obscura was located. There were 20 of us stood around this concave lens in the middle of the room. The lens was opened and the views to the south of the city appeared on the lens in front of us. The lens would be moved up or down to bring the foreground or background into focus. The detail was amazing … you could see cars and people moving around, including the man in his pyjamas tending his plants on his roof terrace!
The camera rotated a full 360 degrees around the city and the guide pointed out all the places of interest that you could see and explained the difference in styles of the numerous watch towers scattered across the city skyline.
We had to laugh, half way through the show, a lady (from the cruise ship) barged her way into the room, with her husband shouting at her “The sign on the door clearly says that it’s forbidden to enter unless with a guide!” Door slammed and she disappeared!
After descending the tower, we carried on our tour. We walked through the empty market place just down from the Torre Tavira and doubled back on ourselves along Calle Rosa which took us back to walking around the sea walls.
We soon entered stray cat territory – we peered over the walls to see the huge blocks of stone reinforcing the sea walls sea … it was home to the stray cats of the city. They seemed to be looked after to a certain degree. Bowls of water and food had been put down and there were several large boxes dotted around so the cats had some protection from the sea and elements.
The cathedral – Catedral Nueva – was now straight ahead … the side-on view. You got to really appreciate just how large this cathedral is – one of the largest in Spain. Its golden dome glistened into the sun.
We walked around the outside of the cathedral and preparations were well under way for the Easter services. Additional seating was being set up in the square. Callum had done brilliantly walking without any grumbles so we sat down at a café in the Plaza de la Catedral. Callum loved his lemony lemonade and Jon & I had a small local beer.
The ship was due to leave in about 90 minutes so we decided to head back and grab some lunch onboard. We headed back to the ship via the Town Hall in Plaza San Juan de Dios and managed to find Callum an ice-cream on the way. Azura was now in view. A short queue and we were back onboard. We gave the Poolside grill a whirl for lunch. Callum had a hot dog and Jon and I went for the shrimp baguette.
Callum wanted to eat with us this evening, so no Kids Tea tonight. We tried to get into Verona (the Italian) but that was a 90 mins wait so we took him to the main dining room instead. Callum was in his element. He ordered mussels (which he loved), soup and meatballs with spaghetti … and still had room for ice cream at the end.
He was late getting to Kids Club – half way through the film “How To Train Your Dragon”. We went to Glass House for a glass of wine to round the evening off before going to collect Callum.
