The soggy corner of the triangle.

Even when the summer sun beats mercilessly down from a sky that is so blue it's mauve and the shimmering white tiled streets of Cadiz reflect the heat, cooking the city's doughty inhabitants simultaneously on both sides as if trapped in a meteorological toasted sandwich maker, this still remains the soggy corner of the Sherry triangle. Cadiz is a bit like Venice without the canals, positioned on the seaward side of a big lagoon surrounded by miles of salt flats and wetland. Where we are staying is in the middle of the soggy bit at Camping Dumas in El Puerto Ste. Marie. 

The town forms the second point in the sherry triangle. Right now it is even soggier than usual due to weeks of unusually stormy weather. On arrival we were directed to the campsite's overspill car park as the pitches themselves are waterlogged. At least we will not get bogged down on the hard standing and there is an electrical hook-up. However, it is a long walk to the sanitary block and our view over the site's rubbish skip pound is not uplifting. 

It rained again overnight but the forecast for today looked reasonable so we decided to revisit Cadiz. There is a regular catamaran service across the lagoon. The maritime terminal is about a twenty minute walk from the site. We arrived in good time for the 11.15am. only to discover all boats had been cancelled due to the storm swell and we were on the bus. 

Not going anywhere today

apart from on the bus..

Though it is exciting to arrive in Cadiz by sea - it is Europe's oldest continuously occupied port - going by bus was not entirely without interest. The route took us over the recently built Puente De La Constitución De 1812. It's a spectacular sight, almost completed when we were last here in 2015, now fully open.

On our previous visit we took a way-marked walk around the city's walls to the Barrio de la Viña, the fisherman's quarter, home to a string of workaday seafood restaurants. In the process we explored much of the eastern part of the old city. The allure of well cooked fresh fish is difficult to resist, but we were determined spend some time in the most ancient part of the city to the west. 

Barrio de Santa Maria has monuments from the Roman era onwards, but the city itself was already 800 years old when Scipio wrested it from Carthaginian control in 206BC. Today this part of the city remains a Romany enclave; here the local style of flamenco emerged, less soulful but pithier and more politically charged than its counterpart in Sevilla. 

From this area we were able to spend some time in the city centre. The cathedral dominates it's eponymous plaza to the extent that it is impossible to photograph it - a Baroque pile the size of a small mountain. 

This is untypical of Cadiz which, unlike Sevilla, does not in general attempt to overwhelm with a series of jaw dropping monuments. It's a more intimate city with small shady squares connected by a warren narrow streets. We rested our cobble fatigued feet in Plaza de la Candeleria sitting on a bench watching the pigeons take bath in a small fountain.

We had a bit of time to kill before lunch. Places don't really start serving until after one. The big event in the main shopping streets seemed to be forthcoming 'Black Friday'. Cadiz felt like one of Spain's wealthier cities judging by the rows of designer shops and high end fashion outlets. Perhaps this reflects the cruise boat economy as much as local consumers. 

Even if we had not noticed when we got off the bus two massive vessels tied up in the inner harbour, we would have gleaned the cruise invasion by the number of bemused looking British couples wandering about, mostly our age or older. Dumped in some foreign city they are utterly clueless about they all adopted the same expression - a fixed, slightly idiotic grin, reminiscent of Nick Park's Wallace; it exudes an odd mixture of anxiety, resignation and condescension. Perhaps they are all wearing the wrong shorts.

By now it was time to head for lunch. In the past I have been quite rude about our trusty 'Lonely Planet' guidebook. However, whatever its other failings, whenever we have followed the guide's restaurant recommendations we have never been disappointed. Today was no exception. It described El Alibe as being so good it alone made Cadiz worth visiting. OK, that may be a tad hyperbolic, but the tapas menu was exceptional and at €3 per plate delivered gastronomy at an affordable price.

El Alibe

Best seat in the place - next to the patio heater

toasted goats cheese and fruit jam

shrimp fritters

star of the show - pheasant with dates and Strogonoff sauce

pud...yum!

We were half-way through our meal when two British tourists from the big blue boat in the the harbour sat down next to us. They were happy to pick our brains about the menu. The more elderly of the two was quite nervous about the food, concerned particularly that the patatas bravas might contain garlic(!). She was accompanied by her daughter; she was anxious about the level of spicing. Gill assured her that if anything the spicing was a little too mild.

The bewilderment that I had noticed earlier in some of the other British cruise ship escapees became more  understandable after the pair explained they were on a 12 day mystery cruise where the destination was only announced as you docked. So far they had been to La Corunna, Gibraltar, Malaga and Cartegena. They were heading home now with one final mysterious place remaining after Cadiz. I suppose I do see the fun in this, but it did  explain why the city seemed swamped by gaggles of British tourists who seemed uncertain about where they were. It was true, they were genuinely unclear concerning their whereabouts.

It spotted rain momentarily as we paid our bill. As lunch progressed we had been glad of the patio heater, it was only just warm enough to sit outside, but the place had lived up to the guidebook hype. We will be talking about the pheasant stuffed with dates in a Stroganoff sauce for a while. It is the kind of thing we discuss, great food and Brexit!

We had about an hour before the bus so we headed towards the east of the city through the backstreets until we came to the sea. By now the showers had passed and there was a short interval of blue skies and sunshine, it even felt warm. 

On the way back to the bus we happened upon a big monument to Cadiz's Liberal Constitution of 1812. It was an attempt to reconcile the liberal values of the Enlightenment to the absolutist traditions of Spain and its South American colonies. Though the constitution had popular support it did not survive the restoration of the monarchy in 1814 following the defeat of Bonaparte. Nevertheless it became a rallying point in later attempts to establish liberal democracy in Spain and its former colonies; an important, albeit fraught process which may now be fully embraced here, but remains 'work in progress' in other parts of the Hispanic world.

We were lucky to get a largely dry day in Cadiz. Come nightfall the storms returned. At some ungodly hour I woke to drumming rain, so loud it could have been hailstones. Tomorrow we are going to drive the short distance to Jerez de la Frontera, the eponymous apex of the Sherry triangle. We are hoping it will be the dry Sherry corner and the weather is fino.