Confluence of influence

Social media told me that an old friend and colleague, AF, was in Cadiz with his family for a few days. So we brought forward our planned day trip to today, as meeting up with him would be a nice complement to visiting the city. We were charmed by Cadiz in December 2015, when we spent a short afternoon there with L. We didn't actually have time to visit the streets of Cadiz on that occasion, but just walked around the coastline to find a cafe. We found the same cafe today, and duly had a coffee there (and a cheeky lemon cake). It was just as nice, and as nicely situated, as we remembered.

Otherwise, the day was filled with wandering, photographing (especially streets and street scenes), eating excellent tapas, drinking rioja, chatting with our friends, and generally hanging out. I've added a couple of extras - one shows the interior of what they call the 'old' cathedral, now the Santa Cruz church, which was a conversion of the city's main mosque and has a simple 'Mudejar' style. You can see the back of the church/mosque, looking distinctly Islamic in style, to the left of the main blip. The blip also shows the 'new' Cathedral (like much of Cadiz built in a baroque style that doesn't entirely grab my attention) and the wall of the Roman theatre. Unfortunately, by the time we got there, the theatre itself was closed, but its location looks fascinating, along with its story of 'discovery' in 1980. So I had to content myself with this picture of the back wall, which also captures the 'Christian' and 'Moorish' eras of Cadiz as well as the Roman era.

Apparently, Cadiz has been continuously inhabited since 1000 years before the common era, so it certainly has a varied history. The other bit of its history that we managed to dip briefly into is that of the Cadiz Constitution, which features briefly in my book because of its significance for constitutional citizenship in Latin America. We found the interpretation centre established for the bicentenary of its conclusion in 1812, although all the interpretation was all in Spanish. I managed to figure some of it out, and I also had some background knowledge which I imparted to Mr A. However, they gave us a booklet in English and Mr A got in for free! Suggested reading for our trip to Cadiz was The Siege by Arturo Reverto Perez, which is set during the 1811 siege of Cadiz, which was when the constitution was drafted. I was hoping to make more progress with this on our train ride back to Seville, but unfortuately we had some exceptionally annoying children in our carriage which rendered that impossible.

A long but satisfying day. We collapsed into bed practically the moment we got back to the flat.