Small though Cádiz may be, it has distinctive neighborhoods. Each day, we seem to discover a new one, though I think by now we have visited nearly all.
I first oriented myself to the city by thinking of it as a spoon, with the bowl as the old town and the handle as the protective, narrow spit that connects Cádiz to the mainland. As an analogy, it's not quite accurate, but the concept helps. The spit has been built up in modern times to house large apartment buildings, shopping centers, and a couple of wide boulevards that parallel the train tracks leading to the port. The 16th-century Puertas de Tierra (land gates) that protected Cádiz from mainland invasions still form a solid barrier across the spoon's neck at the base of the bowl, though they have been modified to accommodate modern traffic.
Just inside the Puertas de Tierra lie the older, and poorer, medieval (13th C) neighborhoods, now home to the local flamenco culture that is still very alive today. There is a school for flamenco, and one hears locals crooning fragments of the music as they go about town. Evidence of medieval guilds can still be found as well. Streets are narrower than in the "newer" sections of town, and houses and plazas smaller.
As the bowl of the spoon widens, as it were, the main plaza, with the port to the east and the cathedral to the west, stretches across nearly from side to side. A smart shopping district runs from the port northward along the east side of the "bowl." Toward the north, or the tip of the spoon, three large plazas are surrounded by wealthy mansions, reflecting the splendor of Cádiz in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, respectively. Continuing around to the west side, we encountered the Barrio de la Viña where once a vineyard thrived, followed by the popular Caleta beach on the Atlantic. The streets just off the beach are crowded with small seafood restaurants. We had amazing fresh clams cooked in white wine, garlic, and jamón at the Meson Criollo.
The walk from Caleta back to the hotel, cutting diagonally across the spoon's bowl, toured streets of local shops and plazas, and passed the public market with its 19th-century structure but very modern food stalls. Offerings ranged from meats and fish to fruits and vegetables. I'd never seen quite this layout before: the market building itself occupies a square plaza (not unusual), but the buildings around the edge of the plaza are also colonnaded market stalls. These tended to offer prepared foods; there was even a sushi bar! We think to come here tomorrow to pick up a lunch for our bus trip to Málaga.
