Viva Espana!

We landed in Cadiz, Espana, on September 5th after a week at sea and it was great to land at Europe's oldest settled city to experience land, wonderful seafood, and good to great wine. We woke up before dawn on arrival to watch the tugboat nudge us into the pier that literally led us into the old part of the city. After checking out the local mercado and munching on some sinfully tasty chicharrones we took a couple of tours; the first being a pretty interesting city tour by bus and foot that took us to some wonderful museums, churches, and historic buildings. We found out that Cadiz was first settled by the Phoenicians and that it became the primary commercial center for trade with the Americas after the river route to Seville silted up. The second tour that evening took us to a small town outside Cadiz where we were "entertained" by a fourteen year old matador intern who did a pretty good job of irritating a two year old bull. Then we had a high energy flamenco program that was very entertaining and where we probably took a hundred plus photos--and you can see some of the "good" ones on Alicia's shutterfly album.

The next day we took a trip to Arcos and Ronda which are two of the famous "white cities" and were lucky enough to see the end of the week long annual celebration in Ronda that commemorates the birth of bull fighting. These were wonderful cities and it was fascinating to hear how these Phoenician born cities were made great by Rome and taken to even great heights of art and science by the Moors. It was one heck of a second day in Cadiz. The next day we took the very efficient and fast train (it got up to about 100 mph and makes our inefficient Amtrak look like an anemic sister train) to Sevilla where we walked the city in hundred plus heat. Still, we enjoyed seeing the cathedral, the Alcazar, and the old Jewish
Quarter where we had a darn good paella and some luscious white wine from a varietal that was new to both of us. On our last day in Spain I co-led a field trip to a wind farm and a solar installation that looked like the set from a science fiction movie. The wind farm produces about 120 megawatts, enough to power a mid-sized city and actually makes electricity at a competitive rate--the wind powering these behemoths started off in the Sahara and picked up force crossing the straits of Gibraltar and was blowing so strong at times that they had to lock in the blades to prevent equipment damage. Then we went to a solar farm where the energy produced cost ten times more than the wind farm but at least they are trying to test and make use of this technology. Our guide for the wind and solar farms is a "bud" of Al Gore, a nuclear physicist, and the author of the most current text on global climate change in Spain. Wow, it was like a year of experiences in a week in Spain and now we are heading to Morocco after spending most of the day refueling in Gibraltar.