14th March 2017. El Puerto de Santa Maria & Cadiz, Spain.

We had a terrific storm last night, which meant disturbed sleep for us both.  In the morning it was still raining heavily intermittently and we were getting worried that we would have trouble driving out, our first thought was to leave immediately and have breakfast when we arrived in Cadiz but then I saw some birds of prey circling so we stopped for breakfast and I started taking photos.  Much to my disappointment they were swallowed up in the cloud that was hanging over the hills pretty quickly  but we’d started eating by that time so we finished breakfast, packed up the van, said goodbye to Terry and Jan and drove through the pouring rain to Puerto de Santa Maria near Cadiz.  I was sad to leave the field, it’s been a great place to stay.

The landscape we travelled through on our journey to Puerto was so beautiful, we even had the opportunity to sing “The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain” which makes a nice change as our sing along song in Spain has been the alternative version “The rain in Spain falls mainly on our van!” unfortunately although the rain was falling on the plain I didn’t manage to get a decent photo of it because each time I took a photo a tree jumped in the way!

We arrived in Puerto de Santa Maria, parked in the aire facing out across the river and rushed off to catch the ferry to Cadiz.  We were SO lucky, we bought our tickets, hopped on the ferry and it left 5 minutes later, added to that  as we neared Cadiz the sun came out!

We had a wander round Cadiz and eventually stopped for lunch at a little restaurant.  The waitress was just writing up the menu del dia so we ordered coffee while we waited to see what they were cooking.  Their menu was great we had a nice red wine, bread, starter, main course and desert for 9.50 euros and the meal was yummy (especially the desert!)

We were so full after that meal that we had to go for a long walk.  We explored the castle which had beautiful views over the sea and across to the lighthouse and there was also a couple of art exhibitions to look round, then we walked to some gardens where we sat for a while watching the birds and enjoying the unexpected sun.  From there we headed back to the port through small gardens and along the city wall.

Once again we were very lucky, we arrived at the port, the ferry was due to leave in 3 minutes, we bought our ticket and hopped on the ferry which pulled out as we sat in our seat, phew!

It was far windier on the way back and we saw a rainbow over the wind farm in the distance.  The sky was black as we looked towards Puerto but it made the white buildings on the short look startling.  We saw a group of 3 cormorants sitting on a post as we came into the harbour, they sat so still I wasn’t sure whether they were actually an art installation!  It was only as I looked at the photos afterwards that I noticed one of the birds had his beak open in one of the photos!

We arrived back at the harbour and Darren and I walked back to the van in the rain.  The rain became lighter as we neared the bridge over to the car park and behind the bridge  a beautiful rainbow appeared.  As we walked across the bridge we spied loads of padlocks with love messages written on them as well as a pair of handcuffs which also had a message of love written across them!  It’s good to be different.

We had a lovely view of lights shining on the water across the river after night set in.