Busy as always here in Cadiz. Over the last few days, the students (in groups made up of half of our many students) have visited the Castillo de Santa Catalina and La Torre Tavira.
The Castillo de Santa Catalina is a 16th Century defensive fortress built along the coast in Cadiz (you may remember this castle from a previous post about our aborted attempt to listen to flamenco music there). Today, it is used as a museum and cultural center, and is a lovely place to enjoy art, music, etc. In our case, we enjoyed a variety of exhibits of paintings and sculpture.
La Torre Tavira is another amazing place, and one of the top tourist attractions in Cadiz. It is an 18th century tower, built originally as a watchtower for a local merchant, so that he could better see the arrival of ships to the Cadiz port. Such watchtowers were incredibly common during that time, as all trade with the Americas passed through this city for some time. As such, Cadiz was a powerhouse of merchant activity and watchtowers were a common sight.
Today, the torre houses a camara obscura, which is something of a cross between a pinhole camera and a periscope, and is basically a device that allows one, in a dark room, to view real-time, moving images from the outside world. It is amazing, and all the students loved taking a visual tour of Cadiz, watching people halfway across the city walking through plazas, cars driving by, and laundry whipping in the wild winds. After checking out the camara, we headed up to the top of the tower for some unbeatable views of the city (the torre is the highest building in the city, so the views are, quite literally, unbeatable).
Tomorrow, a new adventure for all of us, and a deviation from our plans. While we had planned and hoped to travel to Gibraltar, a conversation with the bus company today let us know that this trip would be far too inconvenient. Apparently, a strike of the local fishermen, coupled with the current issues between the Spanish fishermen of the area and the local British authorities (a disputed that has involved the British navy and the Spanish guardia civil!), has made it so that it can take up to four hours to cross the border into British territory....after a two-hour trip there!
And so, we head to Ronda, an absolutely gorgeous pueblo blanco in the mountains a couple of hours from here. This is the town to which the last group (session 1) traveled, and is really, in the opinion of all of the Abbey Road staff, a much more interesting place to visit...The only downside is that there are no wild apes, as there are in Gibraltar.
More soon, with photos from Ronda.
The Castillo de Santa Catalina is a 16th Century defensive fortress built along the coast in Cadiz (you may remember this castle from a previous post about our aborted attempt to listen to flamenco music there). Today, it is used as a museum and cultural center, and is a lovely place to enjoy art, music, etc. In our case, we enjoyed a variety of exhibits of paintings and sculpture.
La Torre Tavira is another amazing place, and one of the top tourist attractions in Cadiz. It is an 18th century tower, built originally as a watchtower for a local merchant, so that he could better see the arrival of ships to the Cadiz port. Such watchtowers were incredibly common during that time, as all trade with the Americas passed through this city for some time. As such, Cadiz was a powerhouse of merchant activity and watchtowers were a common sight.
Today, the torre houses a camara obscura, which is something of a cross between a pinhole camera and a periscope, and is basically a device that allows one, in a dark room, to view real-time, moving images from the outside world. It is amazing, and all the students loved taking a visual tour of Cadiz, watching people halfway across the city walking through plazas, cars driving by, and laundry whipping in the wild winds. After checking out the camara, we headed up to the top of the tower for some unbeatable views of the city (the torre is the highest building in the city, so the views are, quite literally, unbeatable).
Tomorrow, a new adventure for all of us, and a deviation from our plans. While we had planned and hoped to travel to Gibraltar, a conversation with the bus company today let us know that this trip would be far too inconvenient. Apparently, a strike of the local fishermen, coupled with the current issues between the Spanish fishermen of the area and the local British authorities (a disputed that has involved the British navy and the Spanish guardia civil!), has made it so that it can take up to four hours to cross the border into British territory....after a two-hour trip there!
And so, we head to Ronda, an absolutely gorgeous pueblo blanco in the mountains a couple of hours from here. This is the town to which the last group (session 1) traveled, and is really, in the opinion of all of the Abbey Road staff, a much more interesting place to visit...The only downside is that there are no wild apes, as there are in Gibraltar.
More soon, with photos from Ronda.
No comments:
Post a Comment