The trip onto town was by taxi, and it was worth every euro as we went around the town by ways we couldn't have walked, and fell in love with it all. The streets are all cobbled and narrow, no footpaths, and full of millions of little shops selling all sorts. My biggest regret is not havong had the time to spend days cruising around them - preferably without the foot tapping shadow! But we had made another deadline in Gibraltar for the steel work on the boat. However, we had a couple of good walkabouts and found treasures at every turn.
Our visit to the cathedral left us really thoughtful. The building is on the seafront is so vast - we walked all around looking for the entrance, which we found after we had found a number of huge boarded up doors. The place is far bigger than St Paul's, and is made out of some kind of whitish sand stone which is gradually crumbling away. (It is the building under the gold dome in the photos). Inside you had to pay - the first time for a church for us. It became apparent that it is not really used as a church much. There is a small area in the very centre where there are a few rows of seats and an altar with the Blessed Sacrament which is gilded and colourful and beautiful in its way, but the rest of the vast area is bare stone floors and pillars and all around the edge are about two dozen small chapels with large figures of saints, most of which are rather obscure to us, and all very dark and heavy. The ambience is like looking through a mist at everything as the entire building inside is covered with fine white netting stretching across the high ceilings and down the columns which catches the debris falling off the flaking sandstone. We went down into the crypt (included in the price of the ticket!) to an even more eccentric space of low vaulted ceilings and a network of side chapels, more saints on the walls and dark oil paintings of unknown chaps beside them. Numerous marble plaques to commemorate those buried there, most likely bishops and priests from ages past. I did not have the camera when we were there - sorry.
Our next adventure was back to see another of the churches in the town. I managed to get directions from the girl in reception and she pointed out on the map the 'most beautiful church in Cadiz'. So the taxi took us down even more narrow streets and then came to a stop and the cab driver pointed up a narrower street and there at the end we could see a church. So off we set.
You could see this pretty little church down the end, and on the walls between the restaurants and shops lining the street were tiled pictures concerning Jesus and Our Lady. These are common in Spain, and occur on lots of buildongs, and like here, all had fresh fowers on them. One example.
As we got even closer we could see that the little steeple and the roof was also covered in tiles withe the M for Mary picked out - the church was the church of Our Lady of the Palms
Inside the church was a jewel, and obviously much loved and very much visited - not by sightseers, but by the local people. The main altar with the tabernacle was surmounted by the famous stautue of the Virgin of the Palms - I was not able to find out what the full significance was. Underneath her feet and above the tabernacle were 2 cherubs playing - delightful.
To the side was the Blessed Saceament chapel, and on the floor of the sanctuary were baskets where people had put packets of food as offerings, and on the wall were glass cases with miniature hands and feet and babies and all sorts of everyday things which i presume had been left as a sign that a prayer had been answered or was being asked.
The station sof the Cross were all tiles - tiles and tile patterns are everywhere, and in the corridor leading to the rectory were more tile patterns. I feel a quilt coming upon me!
Back at the marina we were joined alongside by a humungous catamaran with a couple and two little girls on board aged 2 and 4. They were the cutest things out. We were truly dwarfed by the boat though, it loomed above and behind us. They were a lovely couple from Germany, spoke impeccable Engish, and were nice neighbours. The little girls had the run of the deck which was all netted in and the netting between the catamaran hulls at the front was a perfect trampoline for them. And there was room for a big paddle pool as well. The whole thing was like a house on floats. Looking out our back end we could see the docks and the ferries going back and forwards across the bay. The bay is so big the only sensible way for folk to get to Cadiz from the north was by ferry. The cranes were everywhere and the ones below took my fancy as they looked like huge birds, especially at night. Thought Sean might like these.
It was also time to do the washing. No machine on board, not like the next door neighbours, only machine is 2 paws in yellow gloves! You can also see the outside office, not that we had much luck with wifi here.
No comments:
Post a Comment