Where to Stay in Cadiz, Andalusia

What is Cadiz known for?

Cádiz counts among the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Western Europe, a Phoenician trading post that grew into the harbour of the Bay of Cádiz and held the trade with the Americas until 1778. The Roman Theatre of Cádiz lies under later building. Museum of Cádiz and the Museo de las Cortes de Cádiz carry what that sequence left behind, while the University of Cádiz keeps the city in use outside the visitor season.

What are the main landmarks in Cadiz?

Puerta de Tierra shuts the old city off from the isthmus. Inside it stand Arco del Pópulo and Arco de la Rosa, the Roman Theatre of Cádiz under later building, and a run of religious houses that includes Iglesia de Santa Cruz, Iglesia de San José, the Oratorio de San Felipe Neri and the Convento de Nuestra Señora del Rosario y Santo Domingo. Old money left towers.

Casa de las Cinco Torres, Casas de las Cuatro Torres, Casa del Almirante and Palacio de Mora are the great houses of the quarter, and Museum of Cádiz, Museo del Títere and Museo Taller Litográfico divide the collections between them.

What is the history of Cadiz?

The Phoenicians started it. Cádiz was founded as their trading post and counts among the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Western Europe, which means the ground beneath the old quarter has been rebuilt over more often than any single monument can record. The Roman Theatre of Cádiz is the exception.

It survives beneath later building, and the churches that followed it, Iglesia de Santa Cruz, Iglesia de San Lorenzo, the Convento de Nuestra Señora del Rosario y Santo Domingo, the Iglesia del Antiguo Convento de Nuestra Señora del Carmen y Santa Teresa, mark the town that rose above the earlier one. Trade made the rest of it. The port in the Bay of Cádiz became the main harbour of mainland Spain during the Spanish Empire and held the trade with the Americas until 1778, and the great houses the quarter is known for, Casa de las Cinco Torres, Casas de las Cuatro Torres, Casa del Almirante, Casa de Fragela and Palacio de Mora, belong to the city that trade paid for.

Puerta de Tierra guarded the only way in by land. Civic memory took over afterwards, in the Museo de las Cortes de Cádiz, in the Oratorio de San Felipe Neri, in the University of Cádiz, and in the Monument to Emilio Castelar and the Monument to Claudio López Bru. The Antiguo Hospital de Nuestra Señora del Carmen and the Testaccio gaditano are on the same list of what the city keeps.

Where is Cadiz?

Water surrounds nearly all of it. The city stands in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula on a narrow isthmus, joined to neighbouring San Fernando by that one strip of ground, with the Atlantic Ocean on the exposed side and the Bay of Cádiz on the sheltered one. Land is the scarce thing here.

That shortage explains why the old quarter packs itself into so little ground while the newer streets stretch out along the isthmus instead.

What is the climate of Cadiz?

The Atlantic Ocean sets the terms. Ocean air crosses the isthmus from the exposed side to the Bay of Cádiz without meeting anything tall enough to slow it, so the temperate band the city lies in arrives here already tempered by open water and moved along by wind. Shelter is rare.

Even the lanes behind Castillo de Santa Catalina carry the sound of surf when the swell is running.

How do you get to Cadiz?

One strip of land carries everything. Approaches by road and rail run the length of the isthmus from San Fernando and enter the old city at Puerta de Tierra, which is why arrivals see the walls before they see the streets behind them. Water offers the alternative.

The port in the Bay of Cádiz has worked since the Spanish Empire ran its American trade through it, and boats still cross the bay.