Wandergliding: Crowded Cádiz & Cape Trafalgar

December 12^th-13^th, 2025

The next Spanish metropolis to check out as I make my way towards Gibraltar is the island city of Cádiz. It was originally founded by the Phoenicians around 1100 BC and in the 18^th century it was the main port for Spain. It’s not actually an island, but close enough with one sliver of land connecting it to the mainland, creating a natural harbour for ships. Cadiz is packed from end to end with buildings, as you can see in this photo, not mine of course.

My day started with a lovely sunrise, which doesn't happen until around 8:30 am since I'm now in Spain and it's an hour ahead of Portugal

I parked at a free camping spot on the mainland by the water, although I didn’t plan on staying there but from my research, I knew that there was a bus stop next to it. I really didn’t want to drive Octi on some narrow streets, searching for parking in the historic old town of Cádiz.

Look at the length of the metro bus I was on! And I think Octi is long and unwieldy to park...

In the newer area of Cadiz, there were a few kilometres of apartments like these lining both sides of the streets.

My plan was relatively simple. I was going to wander around the old town and only had two landmarks that I wanted to see.

Walking the narrow streets of the old town.

One of only a handful of greenspaces in the historic part of town: Plaza de Mina.

The sea wall near the plaza.

This is one of many fancy foyers I saw for apartments in the old buildings.

The Christmas decorations were already up.

Believe it or not, but this is a barbershop. Hard to see in this photo, but it was chock full of religious paintings and statues.

It was narrow street after narrow street...kind of easy to get lost but you can only get so lost since it's an island.

The first landmark on my short list was the Torre Tavira, or Tavira Tower, which at 45 meters, is the tallest building in the historic centre.

They had what’s called the “Camera Obscura” on one floor, which sounded really interesting, but the next English guided tour wasn’t until 4 pm and it was only 11 am. The idea is that they have multiple special cameras with large focal lenses and it projects the images on a concave screen. The cameras make even far away things look near. It would have been neat to see…but not worth waiting for 5 hours.

The camera obscura set up (that I didn't see...just downloaded this from their website).

I took the stairs up to the top and there was only one couple at the top and within a minute they left, so I had an enjoyable time taking in the scenery in solitude.

The view to the northwest from the tower. Just to the right near the horizon is Castillo de San Sebastian, a former island fortress.

Looking south. The two towers of the Cadiz Cathedral can be seen just to the left of centre.

Looking down one of the main skinny streets.

A 360 view of the island city.

Looking towards the port and one of the bridges back to the mainland.

Looking south, towards the newer part of Cadiz.

The Cádiz Cathedral...my next destination.

Some flags at the top of the tower. I tried to look up what they meant and all I found was the top one is "1" and the bottom one is "4"...couldn't find the other two.

A shopping area in town on my way to the cathedral.

A big seafood market.

It was a bit stinky!

I think it might be a marlin...whatever it is, it is big.

The fancy post office.

It was barely a five-minute walk to the Cádiz Cathedral which was an impressive building. It has better be, as it took 116 years to build it! From 1722 to 1838. Yikes. I didn’t bother going inside as it was 10 Euros and I’m not that into checking out churches. A quick search of images on the inside online sufficed.

Some lovely live music by the Cádiz Cathedral.

It is a nice looking building.

Numerous people were sitting down and enjoying an early Friday afternoon drink.

I meandered back to the bus stop, happy that I’d come to check out Cádiz, but ready to move on. My plan was to continue about an hour further south to a campsite.

The most trees I saw during my wander around town.

Some fancy looking building, probably government related but there was no signage to be able to tell.

The Constitution of 1812 Bridge which was opened in 2015. The bus crossed on the older bridge, the Carranza Bridge, which I was on when I snapped this pic.

That's a really tall electrical wire tower. There's an identical one on the shore of the island, probably almost 2 kilometres away.

After settling in, I went for a walk to the beach, but it was super windy and occasionally spitting with rain so I didn’t stay long. I did however notice that there were signs for “Cape Trafalgar”. Huh. I had to look that up, and sure enough, this was the location where the “Battle of Trafalgar” occurred off the shores of the Cape (probably quite a ways off of the coast though) in 1805.

This was a big navy battle between British against the Spanish and French fleets. The British were commanded by Admiral Horatio Nelson and even though he was outnumbered 27 to 33 in “ships of the line” (read: big ships with lots of cannons), he kicked butt on the Spanish and French, sinking or capturing 18 of their ships while losing none of his. Nelson was shot by a sniper who was up in the rigging of a French ship and he later died, but not before he knew the battle was won.

Why do I know so much about this? Well apart from being a bit of a war buff, my English relatives live near Portsmouth where Nelson’s flag ship, the HMSVictory, is located and I went on a tour there as a kid, and as an adult. It’s an amazing ship.

And if you’ve ever been to London, you may have visited “Trafalgar Square” where a statue of Horatio is mounted on “Nelson’s Column”, to commemorate the victory.

The lighthouse of Cape Trafalgar.

Looking south...it was very windy, as it usually is in this area.

The next day, on my way back from the grocery store in Barbate, there was this great view of the lighthouse.

That afternoon, I decided that I had to walk to the Cape Trafalgar lighthouse to satisfy my "history buffness".

A super cool table at some beach bar...there was another one right beside it. Your feet would be dangling...

Getting closer to the lighthouse. There was a plaque on a rock along the path commemorating the Battle of Trafalgar, but it was in Spanish and difficult to decipher.