Friday 22/03: Walked early to the Metropol Parasol, known for good reason as "The Mushrooms", an ultra-modern huge lattice canopy structure, completed 2011.
After breakfast and catching up on laundry we had our big activity of the day, visiting the Real (royal) Alcázar, a current royal palace, home to Spanish kings for almost 700 years. After capturing it from the Moors, the Christian rulers used Muslim artisans from Granada to work on the palace. Their skill is obvious in the ceilings, stucco work and ceramic tiles. There are also huge tapestries glorifying the rulers. The gardens are also huge, and heavily influenced by Islamic design traditions. It was enough to keep us there for a really enjoyable 3 hours.
At 5:00 pm we attended a highly energetic performance at the Flamenco School/Museum that we'd visited the previous day. No photos allowed, but at least this meant everyone watched the fantastic 70-minute show: 6 performers (1 male and 2 female dancers), a great guitarist and 2 male singers/clappers.
Saturday 23/03: Spent a fair bit of the day organising more of the trip – a train from Cádiz to Jerez for the equestrian show and maybe some sherry. As well, we plan to go to Gibraltar, getting a bus on Easter Monday from Cádiz to the border town of La Linea de la Concepción. The idea is to walk across the border into the "UK", where we've booked an apartment for 2 nights.
Sunday 24/03, Palm Sunday: Packed up early, walked to the cathedral, then to about 3 other churches to look at more floats. While having coffee and cake – waiting for our new place to be ready – we saw people in cloaks and pointed hats walking to the nearby (big and important) El Salvador church. There was already a large crowd there, clearly waiting for something to happen, but when, what?
Decided to check in to our new place, which had become ready and then return to El Salvador. By this time, 1.5 h later, the crowd was immense. The procession finally started, led by small kids and parents. It even started to rain a bit, apparently bringing down pollution from above as well! But it was difficult to see anything, so we went back around the block to where we could see more, and ended up following the band for a short while, before returning to our new apartment.
After unpacking and relaxing (cup of tea), we heard brass band music. Going outside to the corner of the street, a few metres away, the same procession we had seen earlier was heading back from the cathedral, having been on the road for 3 hours. This time we had a great, close-up view of proceedings.
An hour or so after this, more music signalled another procession, heading in the same direction, with an absolutely massive-sized brass band – maybe 200 players, and high quality. Their float featured the Last Supper, the first time we'd seen anything other than Jesus or Mary as the theme. By this time it was raining properly, and they decided to stop right where we were, turn around, and head back to who knows where. So everything had to be manoeuvred with the guy in charge shouting instructions to the squadron under the float, who were carrying it on their shoulders. And the Nazarenos at the front and the band at the back also had to change places, all in a narrow street. Rather challenging. There is a video of the first procession, but I don't yet know how to upload it.
It's now Wednesday 27th, and we've been in Cádiz since yesterday at 3 pm. The past couple of days have featured some bad weather. On Monday we were glad to have our waterproofs and umbrellas. We walked around Seville Old Town in light rain and came across the Arenal Market near the river. A really popular cooked food outlet provided dinner, which turned out later to be excellent. Also had a nice coffee and cake there, courtesy of Picnic artisanal bakery.
June then did a bit of souvenir shopping, but we basically took it easy because of the weather – not good for the religious processions either. We did a bit more travel booking, deciding to stay in Toledo (on Helen's recommendation) instead of Madrid for our last 3 days in Spain. Turned out our second Seville apartment was just a few metres from the route of many of the processions after their cathedral visit, but not as crowded as other areas. So we got a good view of the mechanics of how the processions work. The Pasos (floats) can weigh up to 2 tonnes, and in Seville all the Costaleros are underneath, up to maybe 45 in some cases, controlled by a Capataz who relays verbal instructions to them. The whole operation needs incredible coordination (and much strength and stamina).
Next morning (Tuesday) we packed up for our 12:45 train trip to Cádiz, noting that there were already processions passing by – and wondering if that would affect our trip to the station, about 2 km away. We didn't want to be dragging suitcases over cobbles for that distance, but there were no taxis at the rank and crowds of people. So we headed for Hotel Inglaterra where we had earlier seen plenty of cabs. En route we flagged down a free taxi – good decision. And we even got to see more of Seville, as he had to do a wide circuit of the old town in order to drive on major roads.
Seville's Santa Justa station is huge, new, and organised. The train was right on time and arrived at 2:30 in Cádiz, stopping at several provincial towns, and giving us a good view of the Spanish countryside en route: lots of crops, olive and citrus trees, solar and wind farms. Cadiz is almost totally surrounded by water and marshlands, necessitating a circuitous route by the train to reach the town. Again a taxi was the obvious step, right to our door in a few minutes, through incredibly narrow streets. Our place is adjacent to Torre Tavira, a convenient landmark.
Entry to the building and apartment (and registration earlier) was via the StayMyWay app, another novelty to navigate – but we managed. Like almost all of the buildings in the old town, ours is made of what is called oyster stone (piedra ostionera), a type of honeycombed, limestoney conglomerate, full of oyster and other shells – see the photos of June outside the apartment and by the sea. They must have quarried cubic km of the stuff!
The apartment is really roomy and well-equipped. We unpacked and went for a walk, battling cool temperatures and strong winds coming off the Atlantic. Seems like we are in for some continuing bad weather, with a "borrasca" forecast to come in from the west and hit all of Spain for the next few days.
Wednesday morning brought plenty of rain for a few hours. Went out mid-morning to do the Cadiz Long Walk from our guide book. First stop was the market just a few hundred metres away. It was huge, with an overwhelming concentration on seafood. Lots of tuna, salmon, octopus, squid, lobsters, rays, whelks, and all sorts of fish and crustaceans, many of which we had never seen before, and all fresh – a huge amount of activity.
We proceeded past the cathedral (closed until after Good Friday activities) and the Ayuntamiento (1799) ... to the inner bay (with a cruise ship at the terminal), city fortifications (against the Atlantic and all manner of seaborne enemies over the centuries), various parks with massive figs and topiary, and numerous references and monuments relating to 1812, when Cádiz briefly acted as the first capital of a Spanish constitutional monarchy.
However, its history goes way back, to establishment by the Phoenicians, possibly as early as 1100 BC. Huge and ornate (but old and somewhat decrepit) buildings point to the power of the city as the monopoly port for all trade from the Spanish Americas after the river silted up in Seville. Its influence and wealth must have been vast: Wikipedia lists 19 current countries in the Americas as having been within the Spanish colonial orbit. Lots of gold and silver, and who knows what came from there through Cadiz.
Thursday 28th saw us take the train to Jerez de la Frontera, quite early, to take in the weekly show at the Royal Equestrian School at noon and a sherry tour and tasting at the next-door Sandeman Bodega. We decided to take the longish walk from the station as we had ages to kill and just happened to meet a couple, Dave & Sally Hagman, from Grand Rapids, Minnesota, who joined us in the walk. They were really pleasant company through the day: retired teachers, NOT Trump fans.
We went into the cathedral (a church dating from 1264, until Pope John Paul 2 converted it to a cathedral in 1984). Part of the visit involved using Virtual Reality 3D headsets (first time for each of us) to tour all round the building, inside and out – quite an amazing and a little disconcerting experience.
Eventually we left and walked another km to the equestrian school (Fundación Real Escuela Andaluza del Arte Ecuestre).The show lasted about 90 minutes including an interval where the ground was re-raked with a tractor. The horses danced and pranced, with lots of different coordinated multi-horse demonstrations. The audience, almost all Spanish, really loved it. We liked it too, but can't see us repeating the visit.
We, and numerous other people, missed visiting Sandemans (exclusive sherry suppliers to the UK royals) as they were closed and hadn't let anyone know on their website! So we wandered back towards the station, with a few detours, and met up again with Dave & Sally at a Sicilian cafe. We had a great meal there (beer/sherry, pizza, dessert), before getting to the station and returning to Cadiz at 6:30 pm.
Good Friday had us waking to wind and rain-rain-rain, and news on the TV that Seville's processions had been cancelled for the first time in 13 years: the most important ones are meant to start just after midnight. This was probably also the case for Cadiz, as there had been thunderstorms during the night. This is apparently Storm Nelson, causing plenty of problems in Spain and a few deaths. Finally the skies cleared around lunchtime, and we joined the huge numbers of people who were walking about in groups throughout the town.
nicoll
2024-03-29
Great photos - we have very similar ones of the Real Alcazar! Hope the weather improves!
Phaedra
2024-03-30
Wonderful to be able to follow you both on your trip !
Mike
2024-03-30
So jealous! I'm not surprised at how good the seafood is - the Spanish are famously keen on open water fishing everywhere on the planet ...