25 October: around Cadiz

This is our third day in Cádiz, and we still have tomorrow to explore the city. We have seldom stayed for so long in one place, and it is a luxury to take our time and poke around. There are few published guides to Cádiz; apparently it has not been discovered by the greater worldwide tourist trade. A cruise ship or two pulls into port every morning, and crowds of (primarily) British, French, and Japanese tourists roam the center of town for the day before retiring to their ship and the journey to the next port. We have had the leisure to walk out to the farthest corners, into neighborhoods where the population is local, where small plazas house corner bars and groceries and hardware stores and beauty salons, and where people walk their dogs and take their children to city playgrounds after work.

On Sunday we wandered the streets and generally oriented ourselves. This was not as easy as it may sound: ​old town Cádiz is small (1.2 km east to west and 1.8 km north to south), but streets take off on diagonals every few blocks (the better to block the wind tunnels that would otherwise result), and they change names just as frequently. The generally low level of buildings (partly due to zoning regulations that seek to retain the historic nature of the casco antiguo, and partly due to the fact that the sand bar supporting the city won't tolerate high-rises) and the narrowness of the streets invite wandering, but it is easy to lose one's way. On the other hand, with water surrounding on three sides, one cannot really get lost for long. 

We treated ourselves to a traditional Spanish Sunday dinner in the mid-afternoon at a lovely restaurant, El Aljibe. Housed in an older building with stone arches and marble floors, the restaurant nonetheless provides a modern cuisine. We both had fresh fish, following an appetizer of asparagus pate.

Yesterday we set ourselves the goal of walking the periphery of the city, easily done by simply following the seawall clockwise from about 7:00 to about 5:00 on an analog face. It was a fairly stormy day, and we were glad to stop for coffee and a pastry when we had accomplished our goal. Along the way we had noted an interesting corner restaurant (six tables) near the hotel, so we returned there for the mid-afternoon dinner, this time both having meat dishes. (Vegetables are hard to find in this corner of Spain.)

This is the sherry region of Spain, and we have managed each day to taste some of the local varietals: Manzanilla, Amontillado, Oloroso. There are two taverns in town that specialize in sherry, and we have visited both. The proprietors are knowledgeable and proud to describe the characteristics of each sherry. It has been a special treat for us, sherry lovers that we are. We assume that the hours of walking are balancing the higher-than-normal levels of food and alcohol consumption.