Up and out to the Cathedral - closed. Ask the local what time
it opens and told 11.00 for mass. Walk down to the Information
Centre to see what there is, and we attempt to confirm the
opening time of the Cathedral. The information chap was unable to
tell us the opening time of the cathedral with giving us a map
and writing on it while he tells us all the interesting places in
Jerez - Why do Information Centres have to write on the map,
can't they just point?
He confirms 11.00, so we have a drink before walking back to the
Cathedral (viewing Church of San Dionisio and the Town Hall en
route) arriving there at 11.30 with no signs of life and
certainly no open Cathedral so we give up go back to the hotel,
get in car and go to Cadiz, having since acquired a town plan.
We take the route that doesn't require paying a motorway toll.
The roads are remarkably clear with hardly any traffic (in case
you were unsure what a remarkably clear road might be), so it is
a shock to the system when we reach the tourist bit of Cadiz
(i.e. Cadiz) the traffic is nose to tail - where did they all
come from! We drive round the town, past the docks and park up
almost as far west as we could go.
The "promenade", if indeed is what they call it, is the
route to the cathedral and the town centre. The beaches are full
of sunbathers laying on the beach nose to tail, or whatever the
human equivalent is. At the cathedral we have a drink then walk
up to the Plaza San Juan de Dios to do the tourist trail marked
as a pink line on our city map. Working out which way to go is no
problem - you follow the pink line that has been painted on the
ground for tourists unable to follow a map - stupid concept. The
walk takes us round the streets, past the Cathedral, again,
through a flower market (Plaza de las Flores) then on to Plaza De
Espana and the end of the (pink) line.
Everybody back in the car and off we go on the return trip to
Jerez, but this time the route takes us past the salt farms, and
soon we are back on the deserted roads on our way to Jerez. We
chose a different way back to the hotel - bad idea - Val says we
got lost but I still maintain that there was never a problem and
we would encounter something we recognised very soon, and we did.
At the end of another tiring day and our last night in Spain, I
feel I ought to write my post cards - somehow over recent years I
have lost the enthusiasm to write cards and my list gets smaller
and smaller each holiday.
Writing cards means you have to run over the holiday in your mind
and I recall that there was a compact disk of Spanish music I was
going to buy in CORDOBA but decided not to and thought I'd get
one out the library at home BORO A CD (anagram).
I thought of a fictitious waitress, Babs, who in Seville was
particularly efficient and known throughout the district as
Barbara of Seville.
Go to Day 11
Return to Andalucia home page
Author: val_and_andrew@hotmail.com
Copyright © 1998 Andrew J White