Sunday, November 26 – Cadiz, the Final Frontier

Cadiz, Spain, sits on the southwest corner of Spain and was our last stop on the Continent.  We will be in Casablanca, Morocco, in northern Africa, tomorrow and Madeira, a Portuguese possession in the mid-Atlantic, on Wednesday.  So this is absolutely the final frontier.

We love Cadiz.  We have been here several times before and taken the HoHo; followed a painted path through old neighborhoods; and just wandered the pedestrian shopping area.  Cadiz is like Cartagena, Malaga and Katakolon because we can literally walk off the ship and cross the street and we are there; in Katakolon we do not even have to cross the street.  Other ports make it easy, but these are the best.

We did, in fact, cross the street around 11:30, allowing plenty of time for the Mongol hordes to disembark for their tours and hunts for WiFi.  We walked through a park to get to the pedestrian area, passing a Burger King on the way.  We did not even get close, but we are sure it was full of crewmen and passengers sucking up the broadband [Our evening dinner neighbors didn’t even get that far – they discovered that the information booth had WiFi and went no farther].

We walked through the City Hall plaza past a number of cafes with outdoor seating.  They were packed with passengers from a German cruise ship which was also in port today.  It was too early for lunch and there was no room in any of the outdoor areas anyway.  Exiting City Hall plaza, we followed a narrow but still pedestrian street past shops and a few more cafes into the Cathedral plaza.  Although not nearly as large as the one by City Hall, it had almost as many outdoor cafes.  Last year, we could not get anyone to wait on us at any of the cafes we tried despite the fact that they were almost deserted.

We were aiming for this plaza because, for some unknown reason, we always buy our souvenirs at the same little tchotchke shop.  This year was no different.  We had debated whether to get the postal person and the house-sitter Veendam t-shirts or hats and chose Cadiz baseball caps.  We were there, the hats were there and we had euros.  No great thinking was involved.

We chose not to visit the cathedral because MA did not want to climb up and down the 20 or so steps.  There were no handrails so descending would have been even harder that ascending.  In all the visits we have made here, we have yet to go into the cathedral.  This was going to be the year until we realized there was no ramp.  Oh, well, if you’ve seen one cathedral, you’ve seen them all [sort of].

Shopping had made us hungry so we struck out down a side street in search of a new café.  The street was crowded with locals out for a Sunday of shopping or going home from church services.  We saw very few tourists, at least at first.  We walked for what seemed forever until we found what we were looking for, the first café.  We were not going to be picky, but we were lucky.

On an earlier visit, we had paella here in a restaurant we cannot find anymore.  Since we ate pizza in Naples and moussaka in Katakolon, we thought it only fitting to eat the stereotypical food of Spain.  While the paella did not arrive in individual cast iron pans, as had the last ones, it was just as good.  Saffron rice, beef, lots of tender calamari that even MA ate and a tiny prawn – complete from head to tail.  Coke Zero completed the meal despite the chill in the air. 

While we were eating, we saw an increasing number of cruise ship passengers passing by.  A couple from our ship sat next to us and ordered beer.  They were joined shortly by two woman from the ship.  The first thing out of the mouth of one of them was, “Is there WiFi?”  She asked the waiter who told her no and, not surprisingly, she was not happy.  She never ordered anything, expected free broadband and spent her time there fooling with her phone. It was embarrassing.

Across the street was a large bakery which also had outdoor seating.  There were no available tables when we arrived or we might have had cappuccino and carbs for lunch instead of paella.  After we paid for lunch [12 euros], we looked in the display cases for the bakery and had a hard time leaving empty-handed. We were brave but tempted.

We retraced our steps, did some more shopping and then went from plaza to plaza.  As we were leaving City Hall Plaza, we stopped for gelato. We came; we saw; we ate.  It was a good day.

TOMORROW – Casablanca, Morocco