Don't worry...'bout a thing

Marco and I have just returned from a two day extravaganza at Cadiz and Chiclana de la Fontera.  While we were walking along the Guadalavir river here in Seville last week, both of us came to the realization that what we needed to truly relax was water.  After some brief research, I discovered that the closest beaches to us was also rated as one of Spain's best - those along Cadiz and further south in Chiclana.

The best way to get there was to rent a car and drive.  I have to say, I was more than a little nervous about this - and was made even more so after Marco told me that he did not get a GPS with the car.  The road signs in Spain are next to nill, particularly in places where you really need them to be.  On top of that, insert some crazy drivers and incredibly narrow city streets, and voila, you have a recipe for disaster.  However, amazingly, (and I will take the credit here for some sharp sign-reading), we barely got lost at all.  In fact, the time that we wasted was purely because of our self-doubt causing us to back track and then stop to ask when we were going the right way all along.

It was totally worth it though - I loved the experience of driving through the Spanish country-side, looking at the wide expanses of olive groves and green fields. We stopped first at Cadiz, which is probably one of the oldest cities in western Europe, as well as the port for all the trade ships coming from the West Indies and the Americas.  There are also a bunch of beaches bordering the city itself.  I loved it for being such a relaxing, sparkling beach city - I totally felt relaxed after just being there for a short time.  I could tell that people there were just happy and easy going - nothing like the beach culture to melt stress away!

The very best part of our trip all was the fact that the sun started shining as soon as we got to Cadiz.  It was heavy and gray all the way from Seville, and I had frankly feared the worst when I saw some droplets of rain on our windshield (thinking back to a rain-drenched cruise in the Caribbean I took 2 yrs ago).  But everything cleared up like magic once we got close to the water.  Obviously once I saw that, I couldn't wait to go to the beach to soak up the sun and our stop at Cadiz was hastily concluded.  Our hotel was about an hour south of Cadiz, and was situated right in front of La Barrosa, supposedly one of the best white sand beaches in Spain.

Both the beach and the hotel far exceeded our expectations.  The hotel had a gorgeous pool that looked like it had been cut out from a postcard from the Bahamas.  Our room was also roomy enough to fit five people in it easily - awesome!  And the beach was soooo incredible.  The sand was so fine and soft, we were both scrubbing our feet in it for exfoliation!  And by four o'clock in the afternoon, it was just the perfect temperature to lie out and bask.

The day ended with a great dinner, which we completely over-ordered (restaurants here have huge discrepancies between what is a "tapa" size and a "media racion").  Also a funny side note - who would have thought that the entire downtown area near our hotel would be filled with pizzarias? We ate at what seemed to be the only place that was a "regular" Spanish restaurant.