Happy birthday Sarah. Hope you were spoilt.
I think I broke Deb yesterday. I must remember 20k+ steps with nothing stimulating to see or do, feels like a lost opportunity.
The Seville “Mushrooms” are close to our hotel, so I took advantage of a slow morning and took a walk to see them (via the laundrette in search of a missing sock, no luck!). Metropol Parasol or Las Setas de Sevilla is a large wooden structure located in Plaza de la Encarnación, It is 26m high and covers an area of 150x 70m. It claims to be the largest wooden structure in the world.
It’s impressive to look at but seems out of place in this city, why? keeps coming to my mind.
We packed ready for our next city. Today we travel to Cadiz. It’s one of the oldest continually settled cities in Western Europe, having an occupied history of over 3000 years starting with the Phoenicians.
Our driver, Israel, picked us up at 12:10pm and drove us down to the Atlantic coast to Cadiz, it took about 1hr 30mins to do the 128km.
The countryside driving down was mixed agriculture, mostly grains and olives. Wind farms were dotted around as well. The roads remind me of home, reasonably bumpy, rather than the smooth roads we had heading north to Cordoba. As we crossed the Puente de la Constitution de 1812 we saw a small Cruise ship / large ferry in dry dock. Its a very big industrial port.
As we pulled up to our hotel we noticed that there were police cars everywhere, there was a line of police on guard out in front, and a lot of very high brass Police around. We were perplexed as to what was going on.
At check-in we discovered that it was a Graduation Ceremony for new police recruits. The guy on the front desk said it was probably the safest place in town at that time, we had joked something similar on the way in.
After we got ourselves sorted a bit we went out and got some lunch at a little hole in the wall place (Deb assured me it was highly rated). We got there a little before their Siesta closing time (3pm). We both got a Serrano lomo ahumado , jamon Serrano y tomate (Serrano smoked loin, Serrano ham and tomato Roll – basically a very tasty bacon and tomato roll). They were delicious and very generous.
We walked over to Parque Genoves adjacent to our hotel, found a bench in the shade and enjoyed our lunch. There was a lot of activity on the foreshore In front of the park. A quick google search revealed there is a DP World Spain Sail Grand Prix Andalucía – Cadiz event here this weekend. They are rebuilding grandstands and VIP marquees for all spectators. We may get to see the boats practising, but not race, we leave here Saturday morning.
After lunch we walked through the gardens 
and then along the foreshore away from our hotel for a while. 
There are a few enormous fig trees in the gardens near us and around the corner. A few have got some serious branch support beams in place. 
They reminded me of similar large figs we had seen in Buenos Aires. It was a relaxing way to introduce ourselves to Cadiz.
We finished our day watching the sun go down over the Atlantic Ocean
and watching The San Sebastián Lighthouse (or Cádiz Lighthouse or San Sebastián Castle Lighthouse ) begin to do its thing.
