• Cádiz

    Jan 8–10 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 15 °C

    From Mazagón we had a long day ahead to Cádiz, the oldest city of Western Europe. We had another gorgeous sail, even though it started chilly, and entered the harbor area just as the sun started to set.

    We are both big Cádiz fans. We might have only had one day in the city, we were out and about the entire day to see as much as possible. We started with a visit to La Cueva del Pájaro de Azul, a archeological site. Here we immediately learned a bunch about the history of the city.

    This site was only discovered in 2017 when after more than 35 years of closure a flamenco taverna was looking for a rebirth and wanted to install a new staircase. By accident, this archaeological site, about 2 flights below street level, on the neighbor's plot, where the stairs would be built, was discovered. In the 60s there had been a very successful taverna here, but eventually it was closed and forgotten. This taverna had already used some of the space below ground, but it was the neighbor's plot where the real gem was discovered: a Phoenician dry dock.

    More than 2000 years ago Phoenicians used the channel that separated, back then, the two islands that formed Cádiz to build dry docks alongside. This site is one of them. They used a special type of rock in this area, oyster rock as you can actually see the shells in the rock which are used all over the city. In Phoenician times they also had a very smart sort of a hooking system to build strong structures without the use of concrete.

    At some point the people of Cádiz weren't very happy with the Phoenicians anymore and when the Romans offered them more favorable conditions they switched sides. As a result, after this dry dock and some genius underground rain water holding rooms, we were also able to visit an old Roman theatre.

    For the rest of the day we mostly walked around the beautiful city; peaked into the cathedral up until the point where it was still free and of course enjoyed some delicious tapas.

    After a long day we shared a drink with our friends Square One before going to bed to get ready for our sail to Barbate the next day.
    Read more