About Our Family Holidays in Cadiz: Just the beginning …

For the past three years, we have spent our August family holidays in Cadiz.

Guess what?

It’s so great that we are already planning to go back next year.

Many people ask us what there is to do in Cadiz, apart from enjoying the miles of amazingly, clean, white sand, clear water beaches. (It was actually  Monica from Mum on the Brink that got us thinking!) This year, we’ve decided to share what we discovered with you.

So, what about our 2014 August family holidays in Cadiz? Here we go …

How did we travel to Cadiz?

Cádiz is a province of southern Spain, in the southwestern part of the autonomous community of Andalusia, the southernmost part of continental Western Europe. In the region also referred to as Costa de la Luz.

It is bordered by the Spanish provinces of Huelva, Seville, and Málaga, as well as the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea, the Strait of Gibraltar and the British overseas territory of Gibraltar. It has an area of 7,442 square kilometers.

Its capital is the City of Cádiz, which has a population of more than 128,000. The largest city is Jerez de la Frontera with 208,896 inhabitants (as of 2010), and another important city is Algeciras with just over 114,000 inhabitants. The entire province had a population of 1,194,062 (as of 2006), of whom about 600,000 live in the Bay of Cádiz area. Its population density is 160.45 per square kilometer.

(Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Province_of_C%C3%A1diz )

From our home in Mijas, it is only a two and a half hour drive. So, as with our trip to Alicante in June, we packed up our faithful Volkswagen Transporter and drove to Cadiz. Surfboards, boogie boards, bikes and beach toys included, of course 😉

Journey times from local Airports to Cadiz:

• Malaga airport is approximately 2 1/2 hours
• Gibraltar airport is approximately 1 1/2 hours (excluding border queues!)
• Jerez airport is approximately 45 minutes

We strongly recommend you hire a car for your stay to allow you to discover the surrounding towns and villages.

Where did we stay in Cadiz? What did we think about the accommodation?

This year we could not fault our accommodation. It had everything we wanted for a fun, family holiday in Cadiz.

We rented a private villa in the area known as Roche, about 5 minutes from the popular resort of Conil de la Frontera.

Roche is known as one of the most prestigious residential areas of the Costa de la Luz region of Cadiz due to its clean, lush and natural landscape. Its location between pine trees and the sea means it enjoys an ideal year round climate.

Our rented accommodation was a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom detached villa with a lovely lush garden, good sized pool and outdoor barbecue area. It was equipped with everything we needed and was immaculately clean. The fact is was accessed by a shared private driveway within a quiet urbanisation and was totally enclosed meant that it felt totally private and safe for the children. We were able to enjoy family bike rides from the house into the local pine forests …

Our host, Manuel, could not have been more helpful. He was keen to share his knowledge and love of the local area, where he was born and has spent most of his life. 

About the Food and Drink in Cadiz:

Warning: Do not continue if you are hungry! We love simple, tasty, Spanish food. (See some of our children’s favourites in our post Spanish food for children: Our favourites.)

We were spoilt for choice for places to either eat out or take away, within a short distance of our rental house. Food in the Cadiz province is not expensive and is generally, very tasty.

We will tell you more about the local cuisine in the articles about each of the areas we visited. (See links below)

Where did we visit in Cadiz? What did we think of each place?

Get ready for it … Yes, we ventured out this year. We made it further than the amazing local beaches. In fact, due to a little research, we had so much to do that we ran out of time. Hence, our excuse for going back for longer next year (not that an excuse is ever needed for holidays in our house 😉  ).

To break it up for you, we have written articles on each of the places we visited and the places we researched and are yet to visit. This way you can use them to plan your own trips and adventures in Cadiz.

( NOTE: We will add direct links as soon as the articles are ready for you to read … just click on the name of the place you want to read about in the list below)

• Conil de la Frontera: beaches, great food and surf school.
• Vejer and El Palmar: a beautiful whitewashed hilltop village, probably our favourite beach and a live beach display by the fire-fighter planes.
• Cadiz City: An open top bus tour, great fried fish and steeped in history.
• A trip to Entre Ramos: A treetop adventure park in Roche.
• Sancti Pectri: A boat trip and a place still to discover.
• Jerez de la Frontera: Sherry museums, a zoo, karting and museums for children.
• Chipiona and Sanlúcar de Barrameda: The tallest lighthouse in Spain and horse racing on the beach.

What was our favourite part?

Are we allowed of say “all of it”?

The province of Cadiz is such a great place to visit and to share with friends. This summer it was at least 7 to 10 ºC cooler than the Malaga province in the month of August. The temperature of both the air and the water was ideal.

What was our least favourite memory?

The fact that we only had two weeks to enjoy it all 🙁  Never mind, it will be at least three weeks next August 🙂

Random observations and thoughts:

If you would like more details of any of the places we visited or of the villa we rented, just email us at : familylifeinspain@gmail.com.

If you are looking for a beach based holiday then traveling to Cadiz is best done from April to October. Outside of those months the beach resorts such as Conil de la Frontera can be like ghost towns. The cities and towns such as Cadiz Capital and Jerez de la Frontera can be visited all year round.

Pssst … As I’m writing this post, we are excited to have just booked a long weekend ( a puente) in October at the villas in Roche. We are checking out the 3 bed house and friends are staying in the 2 bed house next door. More to follow upon our return …

¡Vive las vacaciones!

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