Sherry, Jerry?

Wednesday 5th December 2018 - El Puerto de Sainte Marie via Cadiz.

Our plans have been constantly been evolving.  I chatted with the lady at the site reception at Trafalgar and she suggested a coulpe of things.  She told me of a car park on the beach south of Cadiz where camper vans stay.  She also told me that Seville was really beautiful (I knew that already) but she told me how easy it was to go on the train for a day.  We hadn't intended to go to Seville and we had thought we might save it for a special city break!  More on this later.

We drove up to the car park she recommended south of Cadiz.  It turned out to be a Mecca for surfers.

We managed to get a parking place with this view.  The surf was up and Janice was enjoying the sight of young surfers showering and stripping.  I don't blame her.  There was some road noise but the place was so convenient for the bike ride along a lovely 'new' promenade with 'new' cycle path into Cadiz.

We had been tipped off abut some of the delights of Cadiz and we weren't disappointed.

We called at the 'free' Teatro Romano' and admired the chargeable Cathedral from the outside.  

As an aside (or rather me), had wanted to start sampling the sherry in this part of the world.  So, we tried our first 'Fino' (Dry) Sherry sitting at a cafe opposite the Cathedral.

Two Sherries = 3 euro.  Not bad.  Of course sherry is called Jerez after the town it is made and Jerez is pronounced 'Hereth'.  Janice has a little standing joke, at the mention of Sherry she says, "Sherry, Jerry" in a posh voice, after the 'Good Life' series where the next door neighbours are snooty.  We have actually bought a bottle of sherry for 3 euros (maybe the cafe price wasn't so good after all).

We had a further tour of the city.

This is the monument of the Constitution which was signed in 1812 at Cadiz, which was briefly the capital of Spain.  We returned to our van and had no problem with the traffic noise.  We intended to return to the city in the morning to see more.

This morning we cycled in again about 9.30am (early for us).  We saw plenty more.

The main land gate into Cadiz.

The main square with the Town Hall in the background.  We also bagged a couple of baroque churches.

And went to the  market hall where we bought some 'morcilla', a Spanish black pudding for later.  You can see it hanging up over the counter.  The fish stalls were probably the best I have ever seen.

There was one after the other of beautifully presented fish of all kinds.  We even saw a swordfish head, including the sword!

Can you believe it, we had our first 'churros' since we came to Spain.  We were a tiny bit disappointed because I thought churros were all sugar coated but these were savoury!  We got plenty though for 1.10 euro.  I sound like a bit of a cheap skate don't I?

Back to the van and we had a swim in the Atlantic and an hour of sun bathing on our beach.  Mid afternoon we drove off to El Puerto.  Another wild camp down by the beach.  It wasn't far, in fact we could see Cadiz across the bay.

We are the only van this time and no traffic noise.

El Puerto is actually a decent sized town from where Christopher Columbus made his second voyage to the Americas.  I'm not sure if I mentioned previously that the Spanish call Columbus, Christopher 'Colon'.  It dawned upon me that is why we call Empire territories the Colonies, and where the word 'Colonial' comes from.  I never thought of that before!

We had a look around the town.....nice beach, lovely new promenade, nice old town and harbour....very historical too.

Maybe Columbus sailed from this point?

There is a very big bull ring and a lovely old church.

Our meal was a mixed tapas including the morcilla.

Washed down with a little Jerez Fino.

Tomorrow we have booked a day return rail ticket to Seville.  We may have to set our alarm to get up?