Cadiz, Spain

Cadiz, Spain

April 17,2011

Unfortunately for us, this is Palm Sunday, a very big holiday in Spain. I wanted to go to Seville for the day and knew I could get there by train. We walked about a mile, met other passengers along the way, to what looked like the ticket office for the train station next store. I never saw a train put Joe insisted it was a train station. He bought round trip tickets for us and one other couple. Then someone pointed out to us that this was the bus station and Joe had bought bus tickets.

Going  to Seville by bus was probably the best way. It was clean, efficient and took only 90 mins. So here we are in this big city with no map, a language barrier and no plans with the exception of having lunch somewhere. I like to have a plan and this situation caused to me to have a meltdown, vowing never to be in this situation again. I spied a hotel and we got a map there and headed to the river as our experience with travel has been that usually that is where things are. We started walking as the crowd of families and others started to build. The people were dressed like they were all going to a wedding, even the children. Beautiful expensive shoes and clothes on everyone. Most of the men were wearing ties. As we walked further into the narrow streets with restored buildings and churches, some decorated with ceramic tiles, we saw hundreds of young people forming a possession, dressed in costumes,mainly white with tall cone shaped masks, just like the KKK. We have no idea what these represent. We did see a sign that said this is not the KKK. This town on this day was party central. Hundreds of thousands of them. At one point we were trapped in a very narrow area and lost.

For lunch we had some form of a Paella made with broken spaghetti instead of rice and tapas of ham and cheese with wine and beer, in a fast food kind of place if you can believe it,  called Boston Burger. We were lucky to find a seat anywhere.

When you travel by ship you have a one shot deal to see the area. This was a once a year event and was fascinating, however I think I would have liked a regular day there.

Gina Wagg