Two days in Cadiz

My roommate, Claire, and I took a little weekend trip to the coastal city of Cadiz. It was quite the adventure and we learned a few important lessons along the way. Like the importance of leaving early so as to arrive at the bus station with plenty of time to spare. Or acquiring a map of the city since our phones don't have data (which means no GPS). And the importance of bringing a knife for spreading things on bread.

Our adventure started off with a bang when Claire and I, running a little late, left for the bus station at 8:30. We had tickets for the 9:00 bus to Cadiz, so cutting it a little close. We were a little panicked on our walk over to where we thought the bus station was, but we were pretty sure we knew where it was, and how hard could it be to find the bus station anyway? It was very hard to find the bus station. Of course we got lost. The bus station is called Prado de San Sebastian and we found ourselves surrounded by bus stops, tram stops, and metro stops, all called by the same name. We looked at every city bus stop in the surrounding area, but none of the mentioned anything about Cadiz. It turns out, the whole block is called Prado de San Sebastian. By now we only had 15 minutes to locate the correct bus. After frantically searching for a little while longer, we gave up and asked a woman if she knew where the bus to Cadiz was. She did. The bus station was half a block away from us, hidden inside of an old building. When we walked through the hallway of the building, we ended up in the courtyard, which was the bus station we were looking for. Needless to say, we were still 10 minutes early, although very stressed out.

The bus ride itself was very uneventful hour and forty-five minutes. It was my first time leaving Sevilla since my arrival from Madrid two weeks ago, and I loved getting to see the land surrounding the city I am living in. The city of Sevilla is entirely flat, but it is surrounded by slopping, rolling hillsides and grassy farmland. Most of the fields are just dirt because it is still winter, but there were also bright green grassy fields dotted with a few trees here and there. Occasionally, beautiful white houses sat perched on the hilltops. There were also lots of almond and olive orchards, as well as vineyards.

We arrived in Cadiz at 10:45, the whole day ahead of us for exploring and doing whatever we wanted. First, we wandered around the streets and went to look at the ocean. One of the fun things about Cadiz is that is is located on a very thin peninsula jutting out into the Atlantic Ocean. We walked around the city, touring the narrow streets with festive lights strung across, and then we headed for the park. It was full of fancily trimmed hedges, flowers, water falls, and giant rubber trees. After this, we headed out to the tip of the city and toured the Castilla de Santa Catalina and the Castilla de San Sebastian. Both castles served as lookout points after the Anglo-Dutch sacked the city in 1596.

By now, it was lunch time. Claire and I ate our lunch on the beach. Although it was windy, it was nice to sit on the beach in the sun. After lunch, we headed to the Cathedral de Cadiz. It was magnificent. Almost the entire Cathedral was made of white marble, and it was filled with side altars, paintings, statues, and a beautiful main altar, choir loft, and two organs. We spent a couple hours in the Cathedral looking at everything inside. The Cathedral also contained a crypt underneath the altar, and we were able to go down and walk around. The stairs were very steep and the ceiling was low, but once inside, the crypt was large, with a domed ceiling. It was a little humid because of the close proximity to the sea. Many important residents of Cadiz and benefactors of the Cathedral were buried there, as well as some saints. The crypt also contained the incorrupt body of St. Victoria. We had not done our research and thought that the incorrupt bodies of saints were only in Rome, so we were unprepared for this. It was really intriguing, and we did a lot of reading up on St. Victoria after arriving at our room that night! She is not a well-known saint. After our tour of the Cathedral, we climbed the bell tower for a view of the city. It was stunning, although the bell rang while we were up there, startling us both.

On our way back to the beach, we stopped at the super market to buy some food. We had decided to buy some groceries to eat for dinner, as well as breakfast and lunch the following day, to save money instead of going out to eat. It is hard to buy food for meals if you do not have access to a refrigerator, but we did pretty well for what we had. Our plan was to buy some peanut butter because that is very filling, but it is a very uncommon item in Spain, and it was not available at the store we were at. We settled for a package of salami, a jar of canned chicken spread, a loaf of bread, a jar of Nutella, two oranges, two bananas, and a box of cheap pastries. It cost us 8 euros for everything. We ate dinner on the beach, while watching the sun set. Because there were no plastic utensils sold at the little super market, we used our fingers and Claire's hair brush to spread the chicken spread on our pieces of bread. We made sandwiches out of the salami and chicken spread, which actually tasted pretty good. It reminded me of something we would eat backpacking. We had bread with Nutella for dessert. For breakfast the next morning, we had more bread with Nutella, a banana, and a few more pastries, and for lunch, we had another salami and chicken spread sandwich, along with oranges and more pastries.

Locating our Airbnb was a whole adventure in itself. Not thinking about the fact that neither one of us has data on our phones, we just wrote down the address before leaving on our trip. Later, we realized that we should have taken a picture of its location on a map. It is very difficult to find one address in a city. Luckily, we were able to ask a local for the correct bus stop and we took the bus to that stop. After that, we had no idea what to do. After wandering around for a while, looking for street names and numbers, we gave up and began to ask for help. Street names in Spain are written on the side of a building and are very difficult to see, making it hard to know where you are. Finally, someone knew the street name and was able to direct us to the street. We wandered up and down the street for a while before we found the apartment building and the correct apartment. It was a miracle that we found the correct apartment with only a little address on a piece of paper to direct us. All we could think of was how did they do this before GPS was invented? Now we know, carry a map and ask for directions. Our little room had two tiny little twin beds and a little table on it with a WiFi password, water, and instant coffee. All you need for a hotel room.

After an uneventful night, we walked half a mile to the nearest church for Mass the next morning. It is still difficult to understand what is going on, but I am getting better. The priest at this church was very animated, which helped. Claire and I went for a run on the beach after Mass had ended. Then we checked out of our room and walked along the boardwalk to the historic center of Cadiz. We ate lunch on a beautiful little park bench and then we visited the Museum of Cadiz. It was full of a range of items from archaeology to paintings to sculptures. We spent a couple hours in the museum and then headed out to the plaza to take a load off on a park bench. After a while, we walked over to a sunny little park, sat down, and read books. It was very relaxing.

Our bus left Cadiz at 5:00 that evening. We gave ourselves plenty of time to get to the bus station and were some of the first passengers to arrive at the station. The bus ride was smooth on the way back to Sevilla. It was a wonderful little weekend trip, but it feels good to return to a familiar place, and be back in a cozy, familiar home, and room.