Petersontravels

Woke up late today…..so nice to have blackout blinds!  We hit the Torre Tavira first, which is one of the 126 watchtowers located in Cadiz.  These watchtowers allowed the local government to keep an eye out for maritime traffic heading into port.  Cadiz was the main port for Spain in the 18th century, and all ships coming to Spain from the New World came through Cadiz.

Torre Tavira became the official watchtower of Cadiz in 1778, as it is at the highest point in the entire city.  It is named after Lt. Antonio Tavira, the first watchman of the tower.  The views from the top are the best in the city.

They had something called Camera Obscura on the tower, that is basically like a lens that they shoot through to a concave screen and they made a circle around the city showing the highlights.  Hard to take photos, but here is a shot from google.  It was interesting to see people moving about the city, unaware that a group of people were watching them from above.  Apparently this was all the rage back before there were motion pictures!

Then we walked over to this park adjacent to the waterfront, Parque Genoves, which dates from the late 18th century.  It had a lot of really cool trees and plants, but my favorite was the waterfalls and grotto.

A view of the park from the top of the waterfall area.

There are a lot of Monk Parakeets living in the park.  Apparently the locals let a few of them get out, and they proliferated.  There must have been well over 100 in the park.

We then walked over to the Castillo Santa Catalina, which is open to the public and more importantly, free!  Great views from this little fort.

That’s Castillo de San Sebastian in the distance.

Every fort needs a church.

This site had a display that talked about the biggest catastrophe to hit Cadiz.  In 1947, a storage depot of underwater mines exploded, and leveled a good portion of the city.   This explosion killed 147 people, and injured 5,000.  The reason given for the explosion was previously captured German made depth charges that had highly volatile ingredients that self combusted.  This is starting to shed a little light on why BMW’s and Mercedes’ need constant tune-ups.  Below is a picture of the damaged porton of the city.  Looks a lot like a photo of Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

One of the culprits.  Damn Nazis!

Another beautiful shot of Castillo de San Sebastian as we were waiting for a bus.

We went to dinner at the #2 place on Trip Advisor, Confusione Pizza.  This place is AMAZING!  Here is my review on Trip Advisor.

We took a walk to rid a few calories from our system and came across this incredible Magnolia tree.  There are several such examples throughout the city.  I’ve never seen one quite this large!

We jumped on the high speed train out of Madrid and left the rain behind as we headed south towards Cadiz.  Did I mention how much we love the trains in Europe?  Fast, clean, quiet…everything BART isn’t.

After checking into our hotel we took a walk along the roadway above the beach to the old part of town.  Such a beautiful sight after spending 3 days in the big city.

We were heading to a restaurant (dosbocados) on the advice of Trip Advisor, only to find out its a booth in a market.  Regardless, the grilled tuna sandwiches were everything they claimed to be!

The market is really cool.  There are about 100 booths overall serving tapas of all types, as well as fresh fruits, meat and fish.  Everything is super cheap….way better than Madrid!

After lunch we took a walk out to Castillo San Sebastian via a walkway built right on top of a reef.  The castle was closed, but the walkway was still very cool as there were waves crashing over both sides occasionally, so you had to make sure you timed it in certain sections if you didn’t want to get soaked.

There was some blowholes in parts of the reef nearest the castle gates.

A panoramic look back towards Cadiz.

Me contemplating the wave action.  I could have sat here for an hour if I had a bottle of wine.

Lastly, a view from our hotel room at sunset.  We have one building between us and the ocean, and it appears to be low rent housing, but what a view they must have on the other side!

We went to a restaurant that Trip Advisor rates as #41 out of 667 restaurants in Cadiz (El Faro de Cadiz).  It was terrible.  Who is rating this place so highly?  The waiter we had was gruff and pissed off that we walked in to ruin his day.  I asked about the specials, and he handed us a menu in Spanish and said the specials were only in Spanish.  He was not there to help.  It was obvious from his other interactions that his attitude was mostly due to the fact we were non-Spanish speaking tourists.  We likely should have walked out, but hey, they are #41, the food must be good!

Nope.  The fish Kim had was bland, and the Paella I had was just a big mistake.  The rice was boring, and the seafood was overcooked.  We had better Paella for 2 euros at the Mercado.

I have always trusted Trip Advisor, but it’s accuracy is lacking on this trip.

If you ever come to Cadiz, the bus system is simple easy!  You can buy a bus pass at every Tabac shop for 7 euros, and that gives you 10 rides.  After walking around town the first day, the bus is a welcome ride home.  Just don’t ride the bus the wrong direction to “sight see”, as you will have to pay again to go back (we found out the hard way).  I presume this is to keep the homeless off?