Cadiz, Thursday and Friday

Thursday, September 27

 Today was a wash.  It was raining hard this morning, with lightning and some long low thunder, so we stayed in and read until noon.  It looked like there was a break in the weather so we set out  to walk to the Roman Theater, the former royal jail and maybe the Genoves Park along the beach.  We weren't out long before it starting raining hard again.   The streets are incredible hard to follow because they are so narrow and irregular.  Barry had to get out the map repeatedly and before long it was soaked a falling apart.   We think we walked by the jail and though we found the theater, it wasn't open.   It looked like it is little more than an archaeological site at this point 

 ("The Roman theatre was discovered in 1980, in the El Pópulo district, after a fire had destroyed some old warehouses, revealing a layer of construction that was judged to be the foundations of some medieval buildings; the foundations of these buildings had been built, in turn, upon much more ancient stones, hand-hewn limestone of a Roman character. Systematic excavations have revealed a largely intact Roman theatre.  The theatre, constructed by order of Lucius Cornelius Balbus (minor) during the 1st century BC, is the second largest Roman theatre in the world, surpassed only by the theatre of Pompeii, south of Rome."  Thanks, Wikipedia)

We saw the city gate while we were looking, but it was raining too hard to take the camera out and take pictures, as was the case throughout the walk.  The area is actually under a flood warning, and we saw a local news story with cars with water over the tires and coming out of the doors when opened!  We bought a few groceries and had pizza at a café.  It was ok  (pretty sure it was frozen), but not bad and we haven't had pizza in a long time!

We returned to the ship wet but frustrated.

Fortunately, though the day was redeemed by our visit to La Cava, a traditional flamenco bar, in the evening.   We went with Andrea (Spanish, SU) and Matt Smith, Kay Slaughter (Environmental Studies, UVa), Rodney (Communications, Lynchburg) and Suzanne Long, Harry (Psychology, South Dakota) and Grace Freeman.   We also ran in to Gordon (German, UVa) and Greta Stewart and a few SAS students.  

We had excellent seats in front of the stage (though Barry's view involved a pole!).

A singer and guitarist came out first and the guitar player blew everyone away!  

They were soon joined by three dancers, all of whom were wonderful .  None of us could decide which I thought was the best!  The show was almost 2 hours long and the dancers had one costume change. 

     

We returned to the ship around midnight, meeting lots of students who were just leaving for their evening activities.  Some expressed amazement that their faculty was out so late.

 Friday, September 28

As the students often do, we slept through breakfast.  We left around 10:30 to try to see something without rain!  We did the "Castles and Bastions" walk without sun, but at least there was no rain!   

One of the first things we saw was a small demonstration in front of a municipal building.  The signs refer to Cadiz as the "European Capital of Unemployment."   There have been demonstrations all around Spain as they are suffering a deep recession with high unemployment rates.  The government has announced a new budget that cuts social program drastically.  We have seen lots of street people and begging.  It is a sad situation.

 

We walked along the 18^th century San Carlos Wall to the Fortress of Candelaria, a military fortification on a natural elevation of land constructed in 1672.

 Genoves Park or botanical garden was very nice; we saw a huge angel trumpet and trees that belong to the magnolia family with incredible trunks.

       

The next place we looked around was, Santa Catalina Castle, also a military fortification,  built in 1598 following the English sacking of Cadiz two years earlier. Recently renovated, today there was an extensive display of artifacts brought from the Caribbean Sea area to Spain.  It was very interesting.

 

We walked along the deserted beach for a ways Unfortunatley, there was lots of trash washed up on to it.  Also, unfortunate, was the fact that the camera battery died and we hadn't brought the extra one along.   So we got no picture of an incredible sand castle.

 

We walked part of the way out to the San Sebastian Castle, built in 1706, but did not go to the castle.  We were hungry, having not had breakfast so we walked to the La Vina District, along La Palma Street where there were many restaurants to choose from for lunch.  We chose one called Meson Criollo, an Argentine place.   Jayne had an unusual cold tomato soup – garnished bits of ham and cheese, a grilled chicken breast, with papas fritas, a small veggie salad and flan.  Barry had shrimp tortas, a plate of fried seafood and fish – squid, calamari, sardines, and something he could not identify, but loved, and flan.  

After lunch we walked back to the ship by way of the street the Spanish teacher at Madison County High School once lived on when she did an exchange program here.

 

We had not been very impressed with Cadiz, but the flamenco last night and the walk without rain today went along way toward creating some really positive memories about it for us.