Cadiz Excursion

Monday, January 28^th, 2019

Cadiz Excursion

Cadiz is known to be one Europe’s most ancient cities that has ever existed hundreds a years before the birth of Christ. It was a city named/known by the Romans as “Gadir.” So, when reffering to the ancient city, it is okay to call it “Gadir” to be cool. Currently the city is known as Cadiz and has a lot of culture and history to it.

When entering into this city, there are 3 ways of entering into this neat city. 1, you can drive there by car, 2 you can arrive there by train or 3, you can arrive there by bus. It takes about 5-6 hours average, depending on traffic of how to arrive there. By bus you will need to spend about 8 hours on the bus and by train which is the fastest way will take you about 4 hours. Out of all of the 3 options I had the opportunity to use an app in Spain called “Blabacar” which is a carpool app where you pay a driver heading to a specific place you are wanting to head to. I also looked into the bus options and was not a fan of wanting to sit on a bus for 8 hours. Which lead me to pay for a train ticket that would cost me 4 hours of my time. 

When I arrived in Cadiz, I was able to observe that the city itself is a peninsula. It is surrounded by water. If you start on one end of the city and walk around the whole city to other side, you will notice how you have walked a peninsula. The city is not big, it is big enough to walk around the whole peninsula surrounded by water. Within the city, there are two parts separated by an ancient gate that is one of the sites tourists are recommended to observe and take pictures of it. Anything within the gate is the ancient past of Cadiz and from the outside gate and going backward, you are in the new part of Cadiz. So, when referring to hanging out, some people will refer to the old part of town or the new part of town.

Inside the old part of Cadiz which is where all the tourists go to see the neat architecture that still stands. They have a neat plaza where the town hall is located along with narrow and beautiful facades located outside of the buildings. And, to summarize the rest you will see a beautiful cathedral that has a Baroque and Neoclassic type of architecture to it, along with another building on the coast called “La Caleta,” and other monuments within the city. The Cathedral of Santa Cruz has an interesting yellow dome on the back side of the building that gives it a “mudejar” feel to it which is a type of architecture that existed when the Christians built buildings under the Musilm rule and the “mozarabe” style was around when the Muslims built among the Christian rule. 

I went to this city mainly to location scout for a short film I wanted to create. I was not able to take the iconic pictures that most tourists take of the city.

Besides that, you can also take a train to go around other parts of Cadiz that are located outside of the city or you can take a boat that will cross over the other parts. 

Other than that, I plan to return to return to the old city and take note on the cathedral and its historic monuments. 

Sincerely,

Sal Galvan