Day 2,120 of Traveling the World | Cádiz, Spain | November 20, 2023

Jan and Mike

The cruise ships think so little of Cadiz that they list this charming city as Seville (Cadiz) and describe everything to do in Seville without a word about the actual city of Cadiz. Yes, we docked in Cadiz – anddddd, Seville is 73 miles away!! It just doesn’t get any respect, and a cynic (never us, of course) might think that the cruise companies emphasize Seville because they can sell you a costly excursion to that distant, famous city rather than you just walking off the ship and enjoying the local sights. However, since we have visited Seville multiple times, but had never been in the “island city” of Cadiz, we thought a stroll through the city was warranted.

Just wandering around, with no real agenda, we came upon several pretty plazas with churches, a town hall, and cafes – all decorated merrily for Christmas. There were many shopping streets, and all had garlands and Christmas decorations. Three cruise ships were in port, so the city was buzzing and quite busy. Not everybody took off for Seville, it seems, even though we could see many buses lined up once our ship’s gangway was cleared and open for the day.

In Town Hall Plaza, there was a Farmer’s Market set up, with kiosks selling all sorts of merchandise – fruits and vegetables, sure, but also handmade items and Christmas wares. We passed a cool mask store, and multiple chocolatiers and bakeries. Both locals and passengers were out shopping for the day! Cadiz is a long, thin island just off Spain’s Atlantic coast, and it is connected to the mainland by several bridges. We could hardly believe that after walking just 5 minutes, we were already on the opposite coast from where our ship had docked. As we always say – on an island, you can’t really get lost; you always pass by somewhere you have already been!

Town Hall Square, or Plaza de San Juan de Dios. We passed by several times, and it was always busy.
Catedral de Cadiz Plaza. They were setting up for a concert on the cathedral steps, and the sound check was loud enough to be heard in Seville, 73 miles away! The line to enter the cathedral was very long.
Across the plaza from the church is its Bell Tower.
As we mentioned, Christmas decorations a-plenty appeared everywhere.
The mask store was quite wonderful, quite colorful.
We liked this mismatched building connector. Close up, though, you can see how the weather from the ocean deteriorates the exterior of buildings.
This Christmas tree is quite modern, but more interesting is the trees behind it – six orange trees, which were bearing fruit. One entire street was planted with laden orange trees – they brought a smile to people’s faces. However, the oranges are very bitter, not edible, and you open yourself to prosecution if you pick them, as they are the property of the local government.
One of the typical shopping streets, part retail, part residential.
At least 10 residences were passed had an entire cuffed hand like this as door knockers.
Loving the lions lined up on this facade.
A beautiful piece of Art Deco art on the exterior of a building.
One of the many plazas we came across during our walk.
Another Art Deco mosaic – this time wrapping around the corner of a building.
Translation: Dolls of sugar. (Cute.)
The morning sun in Cadiz.
This mini orchestra greeted us in the Plaza de la Catedral.
You can listen to a snippet from the orchestra in this short video.

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