EXCERPT FROM SARA’S JOURNALMay
15, 1999
Cádiz
In 1809 Lord Byron wrote about Cadiz: "…the most beautiful town I ever
beheld…and full of the finest women in Spain". The city is a jetty of land in
the Bay of Cadiz, sticking into the Atlantic like a slender finger. It’s almost
entirely surrounded by water, and it’s the oldest city in Europe. Legend names
Hercules as its founder. Historians credit the Phoenicians with establishing the city,
then called Gadir, in 1100 BC. The Carthaginians, the Romans and the Moors all had their
turn at the spot, and after the Reconquest the Christians prospered here with the wealth
brought back from the Americas. In 1587 Sir Francis Drake attacked the port in the first
of a series of raids, when colonizing empires fought over world trade.
Liberal politics have been a hallmark of Cadisian life since the 19th
century, when the city decisively resisted Napoleon’s army in 1808 and helped
preserve the Spanish nation. In 1812 officials drew an assertion of democratic ideals,
called the Constitucion de Cadiz -- Spain’s first constitution – momentarily
making the city Spain’s capitol. During the Spanish Civil War Cadiz fell early and
hard to Franco’s Nationalist army. As redemption, the city’s pride – the
Cadiz Carnivales – were the only celebrations which Franco's authorities failed to
suppress. For two weeks each February, Cadiz rekindles it’s liberal spirit with
Spain’s wildest and most dazzling party. Groups of singers, hilariously costumed and
having practiced for months in advance, compose outrageous satirical songs that poke fun
at politics, regions, culture, fashion and celebrities. Last year one song mused
"what’s happening to the world? People are picking up after their dogs".
Lyrics get rough as the song progresses, and to Spaniards it is very amusing to think of
each other scooping. Songs are performed in the Falla Theatre and the competition goes on
for days, with an "anything goes" attitude. Later in the week singers take their
performances to the street, where everyone in the city dresses in sumptuous costume and
parades through the old quarter singing, dancing and drinking.
The city’s like a frying pan today, jutting out into the bay, ripply hot and
surrounded all around by golden sand. At the centre – at the tip – where the
Atlantic and the sky make a blue halo, the Catedral Nueva swells in the heat wave like a
shiny, round beetle. It’s a Baroque and Neo-Classical giant, built on the site of an
older church (and thus called The New Cathedral), sprawling with an army of buttresses,
and with a polished, tiled dome, painted yellow to look gold in the shining sun. Visitors
stretch their necks from nearby cafes, where today families share communal plates of fried
seafood and glasses of ice cold beer.
