The End of World on the Costa da Morte

Galicia! Spain, but not really, more the Western outpost of the Celtic fringe of Europe where the known world ended for much of Europe’s history. Once you start heading west from the larger cities of A Coruna at the north end – or Santiago de Compostela from the south – you enter hilly wooded countryside that rolls down to a rocky coast facing an often foggy and choppy Atlantic Ocean.

The Romans called it “Finis Terrae,” or the End of the World. They still developed a major port at A Coruna, and had a road network that ran down to Braga in Portugal and beyond into Roman Spain. Brandomil Bridge is a 16th-century replacement over a Roman route and gold mining town that also came to be part of a pilgrim trail.

Brandomil Bridge

Shipwrecked Galicians concurred with the terminal theme, naming the area “La Costa da Morte.” The most exposed section of coast runs between Muxia in the north and Fisterra (in Galician – Finisterre for most everyone else) in the south. I started with Fisterra, a fishing port that sits on Cape Finisterre and which is a good base to explore the area.

Fisterra Harbor

Cape Finisterre is also the actual last stop for Camino de Santiago pilgrims. Of the 300,000 who walk to Santiago de Compostela each year, the most determined – or possibly religious – go on to Fisterra to complete the last 80-kilometer stretch.

Castelo de San Carlos, Fisterra

A good and less extensive hike from town can take you to the Fisterra lighthouse, about four kilometers southwest and facing the open Atlantic. You may well imagine Fisterra facing the open Atlantic, but the likely fog layer just masks the eastward view to the other side of a large bay. Due west of the town is the Praia Mar de Fóra, a secluded and often windswept beach.

Rocky bay, Muxia

There are plenty of small towns scattered along the coast. Muxia, on a northwest tip of the Costa da Morte, sits astride a raised headland facing northwest. It is a working fishing town surrounded by rocky countryside and well worth a stop to wonder how people scratched out a living 100 years ago.

Mirador do Corpiño viewpoint, Muxia

If you go to Restaurante d’Alvaro – one in a stretch of good seafood places by the harbor – and ask for a bowl of their seafood soup you get this:

Seafood Soup, Restaurante d’Alvaro

A maritime memorial church sits at the tip of the headland where you can carefully walk over large boulders to the ocean.

Nosa Señora da Barca Church

Muxia suburbs

In general a car is the best way to explore the area – however, there are regional bus networks out of A Coruna or Santiago that will take you along routes to Fisterra.

Carless in Galicia

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Pontevedra banned cars in it’s medieval town center in 1999 and hasn’t looked back. Ironically this makes it quite a car friendly city, because they built underground garages in the surrounding new town, where you can drop your car and start walking. Even better is the revitalized, pedestrian friendly downtown.

Pontevedra has a substantial old town with an open walking zone that can be crossed in 20 minutes. Separate from that, if you are looking for a place to go in northwest Spain, Pontevedra has a good combination of being a decent sized and well-preserved town that isn’t inundated with visitors.

Praza Alonso de Fonseca

Galician towns have well-populated and lively centers that don’t really empty out, except after lunch and of course in the depths of night.

Praza de Ferreria

Pontevedra sits at the east end of the Ria de Pontevedra by the River Lerez – once a larger medieval port, the estuary has silted up with Vigo becoming the main commercial port in the area. There is still a riverfront but post-war urban planning has put a main road along it, so this isn’t really a waterfront town.

Beer List at SoulBeer Pontevedra

Pontevedra is a great base to visit northwest Iberia, and is between the parks and beaches of the Rias Baixas, the River Minho wine country and Santiago de Compostela.

Raxo and the Ria de Pontevedra

Mexico City Culture Hop

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Mexico City: Four hours flying (give or take) from New York or San Francisco (respectively), but few people you ask seem to have visited. Mexico City is a world class destination with a unique past. You can get a first grip on that history very readily. Start at the Zocalo, where the cathedral originally constructed by the Spanish between 1573 and 1813 dominates the north side.

There is a decent itinerary that runs you from the Zocalo down to Chapultepec Park, which could take between a half and a full day.

Fine Arts Museum; Palacio de Bellas Artes.

10 minutes walk west from the Zocalo, the Bellas Artes is worth a look not only for its Spanish colonial-era collection but also some great murals. “Man, Controller of the Universe” by Diego Rivera is the place to start, derived from a similar commission from 1933 at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York. A worker, in the center, controls the forces of capitalism (at left) and of communism (at right). The original in New York was destroyed, mostly because the sponsors at Radio Corporation of America disliked the Communist themes present in the mural. Subsequently, Rivera looked to recreate it in Mexico City.

Man, Controller of the Universe, 1934

Rivera was a Communist and while Trotsky gets second billing on the right after Lenin, you don’t see Stalin. While it’s well known that Trotsky sought political refuge in Mexico City from Stalin’s regime, and was assassinated there in 1940, it’s also notable that Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo sponsored his arrival in 1936 and housed him for three years. This mural pre-dates that relationship, with Trotsky in exile in France at that time.

Rivera was a keen commentator on Mexican history and his other murals line the same gallery.

There is a large set of traditional colonial-era artifacts and art, including Velazquez, Zurbaran and el Greco.

Diego Rivera Mural Museum.

Just west of the Bellas Artes in Alameda Park is the Diego Rivera mural museum. The main attraction is the mural “Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in the Alameda Central,” painted in 1946-47, which was installed in a hotel restaurant that was damaged in the 1985 earthquake and then moved to the museum. The mural depicts key people from Mexican history, around an early-20th century promenade in the park. At the center is La Calavera Catrina, a female skeleton who is an image of death in Mexico and an icon of the Dia de los Muertos. On her left is the painter as a child and behind him, his wife, Frida Kahlo.

There was a guitar concert performing on the Sunday visited, and they cranked it out.

The art of public protest continues to be developed, this on Reforma.

National Anthropological Museum.

At the west end of our tour, the anthropological museum located in Chapultepec Park is worth seeing to understand Mexico’s pre-Colombian history, particularly the origins and interaction of each of the dueling civilizations that made up the country. The Aztec Empire came to dominate the Valley of Mexico by the time of the arrival of the Spanish, is perhaps the best known, if only for that decisive point in history, and was a triple alliance of Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan.

There is a very neat painting on pre-Colombian Mexico City in all it’s lakey majesty, and which helps explain why it now has such seismic issues.

You could easily spend a whole day there. Sundays are thoughtfully free entry.

If you have the time, a half-day trip out to the abandoned Mexica city of Tenochtitlan is well worth it. Take a hat, water and sun block.

Whether or not you are muraled-out, you can have just one more at the airport departures area.

Y adios! If you are heading points North, try and sit on the right side of the aircraft to catch the volcanoes east of Mexico City.

Arabian Nights: Riyadh

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Riyadh is Saudi Arabia’s capital and largest city. It is sprawly and modern and you’ll need a car or a cab to get around. There is plenty of iconic architecture, including the UFO-style Ministry of the Interior building, and something that looks like a large vegetable peeler that has also arrived from another galaxy:

If you happen to go there is a neat fort downtown and the national museum at the King Abdulaziz Historical Center. The Masmak Fort, dating from 1865, is notable as the Al-Saud clan conquered it in 1902, and then started the formation of the country as a single entity. They have some good historical information and photos of the fort when it was mostly surrounded by sand and scrub. If you go anytime around summer, there are stiff hairdryer-like winds even in the evening, so stay hydrated.

You can go for a wander around the migrant neighborhoods, which tend to be lively and have a good market atmosphere. In this case I stumbled across an Indian/Bangladeshi area in the Al Futah neighborhood just northeast of the fort.

Bangladesh has a large migrant community in Saudi Arabia and so there are plenty of flights to Dhaka should you need them.

The usual Saudi travel rules apply – see notes from a trip to Jeddah are at: https://wp.me/p7Jh3P-vr

Aveiro to Viseu: Sea to Hills

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Want to visit Portugal to avoid large crowded cities, but are looking for lively small towns as base to explore from? Try Aveiro for the coast and Viseu for the highlands – Portugal isn’t wide and they are a few hours’ drive away from each other.

Aveiro

Aveiro is a compact town that sits beside the coastal Aveiro Lagoon, with 17th-century running through it to support commerce. Now it’s a mostly local seaside town and a great place to hole up for a few days. It’s Portugal, so clear your calendar for lunch.

Apart from a few hours walking the lanes around the canals, Aveiro has a few rainy day museum sites – the most interesting being the Aveiro Museum – St. Joana, housed in a former 15th-century convent, which has the full-on baroque decoration that is best sampled in small doses.

St Joana was an heir to the Portuguese throne who gave it up to become a nun and lived in the Aveiro convent. The nun’s refectory is well-preserved and St Joana’s tomb stands in an elaborate tiled room.

With the original convent spaces and chapel on the ground floor, there is a comprehensive museum of Portuguese medieval and renaissance religious art up above.

Aveiro is proud of it’s still intact canals and the place gets nice sunsets.

Logistics. Aveiro is a good base to explore the larger city of Porto – you could day trip it by train. There are plenty of beaches within striking distance as well. Meanwhile, Aveiro gets plenty of local visitors and so has good accommodation and food options, some of which are:

O Batel – great seafood in a wood-paneled 1970s-era time machine.

Armazém da Alfândega – more casual and modern deal.

Nos os Tras Montes – cafe/store for local produce. Local wine and microbrews on tap with outside seating.

Pastelaria Ramos – cakes etc.

Viseu

Viseu doesn’t get much attention but was well located enough between the plains and the hills to be picked out as a regional capital by the Romans – who liked the view and called it Viso – and to grow as a medieval and renaissance center for Portugal’s central highlands. It’s a neat little town with a bunch of great outdoors around it.

You can start at the main square and navigate your way around the medieval alleyways that lead down to the new town.

One of Portugal’s best known renaissance-era painters, Vasco Fernandes, better known as Grão Vasco, was from Viseu and there is a collection of his and others’ work at the Grão Vasco Museum by the cathedral.

Viseu is a great base to explore some of the national parks and villages in the Beira Alta highlands – start with the Parque Natural da Serra da Estrela. It’s about 90 minutes east of Viseu and you could pick a town like Manteigas as the base for a few days of hiking. One simple day hike out of Manteigas is the Poco do Inferno waterfall.

The drive from Viseu up and over the N232 will give you some incredible views.

Logistics. Viseu is a compact town with a well-preserved medieval core, so walking is your best bet to get around. I stayed at the Casa da Sé just off the main square which was fine. Good food options are:

Tasquina de Se. Tapas and wine, all good.

Mesa d’Allegria. Small plates as well.

One Night in Jeddah

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Saudi Arabia. Tough to visit as the visa categories include: Diplomatic, Government, Business, Accompanying someone on Diplomacy, Government or Business; Hajj Pilgrimage and Umrah Pilgrimage (similar to Hajj but at a different time). Note the absence of a coming to take a look and dawdle around visa. There are plans to introduce a tourist visa so watch this space. While tourism is restricted, there is still a significant expat community, especially from West and South East Asia.

Jeddah is a good place to start, as it has been Saudi Arabia’s commercial center as a Red Sea port since medieval times and there are a few things to see before heading on. It also has the world’s highest fountain, that you can view from the seafront.

Jeddah is now mostly sprawley functional low-rise buildings; until Saudi Arabia developed it’s oil industry post WW2 it was hard to maintain a large population (and the attendant sea water desalinization plants) so the growth is quite recent. However, the al-Balad district downtown still shows a slice of pre-growth Jeddah and is a good place to wander around.

The souk is a good place to detour, not so much for nasty Chinese plastic goods, but the dates are going to be fresh from the farm and if you are missing a keffiyeh or an abaya in your wardrobe this is the place to haggle for one. Head for Suq al-Alawi and look from there.

Al-Balad is a live neighborhood with some preserved historical buildings such as the Matbouli and Nassif Houses, and others that merge traditional features with modern additions.

Foodwise the traditional Saudi restaurants offer varieties of roasted meat and rice although barbecued fish is another local specialty. Lebanese and Indian restaurants are plentiful and another good option.

Visits to the supermarket will show a poor (non-alcoholic) beer selection but plenty of fruit juice varieties.

Rumor has it that the re-sealable swing tops on the glass fruit juice bottles allow introduction of yeast and sugar to make it a more interesting beverage. When the company switched to non-resealable crown tops, sales plummeted, allegedly.

Logistics. Jeddah Airport is rather outdated at present and there is limited public transit, although the new Terminal 1 is planned to have a light rail connection downtown. Taxis at the airport will try and rip you off – a trip into the central area of Jeddah should run about 50 Saudi Riyals in a taxi (~US$15) but they will start the bidding at 200. Depending on which if the two existing and separated (North and South) terminals you arrive at, Uber may have a long wait time. You should set up the Careem app, which is a regional version of Uber that works quite well. Uber and Careem are otherwise efficient to get around and the taxis are better value around town.

Women visiting Saudi Arabia should acquire an abaya before getting off the plane to cover up, although visitors don’t appear to need a headscarf (while the locals do).

Restaurants and coffee shops are divided into male and family sections – if you are in mixed company you can use the family section.

Lisbon: A Low Key Guide

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Lisbon. Everyone’s going however, so it’s time to work out how to see the place while avoiding undue interaction with bus-size tour groups and hordes of weekending Danes until things cool down.

Lisbon has had it’s work cut out for it trying to become a grand European capital, in part owing to a catastrophic earthquake in 1755 followed by invasion and destitution in the Napoleonic Wars. A fairly extended dalliance with fascist government (1933-74) and it’s geographic isolation from the rest of Europe (assisted by its neighbor Spain’s own dalliance with fascism between 1939 and 1974) has meant that Lisbon has retained an older feel.

Orientation: the city is arranged in a bowl around the Baixa district, which is perhaps the least interesting part of the city, reconstructed after the earthquake and then further modernized in a grid pattern. To the West of the Baixa are the Chiado and Bairro Alto districts, and to the east is the medieval/moorish Alfama, more of which later. These areas are all walkable if you don’t mind some sharp hills to get you there. Further west along the waterfront is the Belem district, which is where Vasco da Gama sailed for India in 1497 and is worth seeing for a fix of maritime history.

The Baixa is a good shopping area if you need one, and it opens out onto the Praca do Comercio for waterfront views. The Chiado, up the hillside just west of the Baixa, is a good area to wander with a late 19th century feel. Stop off at the Cafe do Brasil and see the Museum of Contemporary Art. Just east of the Baixa is the Alfama, the city’s original medieval center lying below the originally Moorish Sao George castle, which is worth a look if you want some windy hillside streets.

Once you have had a general wander around, it’s worth focusing in on some specific destinations and here are some ideas.

Belem. If you want a handle on why and how Portugal stepped out into the world you can head out to Belem, the waterfront area where Vasco da Gama set out for India and where the massive Mosteiro dos Jeronimos was built to commemorate his safe return. Start with the Museu de Marinha, the maritime museum, where there will be plenty of nautical material.

Museu de Marinha: Pre-Earthquake Lisbon

Mosteiro dos Jeronimos

Renaissance-era navigation charts with the known world covered off and the rest a mystery.

Funky sail and steam powered late 19th-century frigates.

Goa became Portugal’s foothold in India in 1510 until they were forcibly ejected by the Indian military in 1961.

The Gulbenkian. The Museu Calouste Gulbenkian is a must-see for art. Calouste Gulbenkian was an original 1%-er, an Armenian Turk who started in the oil business in the late 19th century, developing interests in Iran and elsewhere, and making a mint in the process. Fleeing Turkey in 1896 after the first of many Armenian massacres, he took British citizenship. Turkey’s neutrality in WW2 made life less comfortable for him in the UK, and he later emigrated to Lisbon, leaving his accumulated artworks to his foundation. The collection is spectacular as a sample across human creativity and the modern art museum – in a separate building covered with the same admission – is worth a visit.

The Aljube. Portugal’s history attempts to be more dramatic than many European countries, and largely succeeds, covering the formation of the state from warring Iberian tribes, the first global empire, hundreds of years contending with Spanish dominance of the Iberian peninsular, joining in the slaughter of WWI trench warfare and then succumbing to fascist dictatorship between 1933 and 1974, before reemerging as a vibrant democracy since. The Aljube Museum on Rua Augusto Rosa 42 covers Portugal’s political history under fascism, and is located in the former secret police headquarters under the Salazar regime. It’s a history of repression and dictatorship, but also explains how the regime was ultimately ejected.

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Aljube Museum

The Alfama and and Lisbon Cathedral are also convenient to Aljube.

Lisbon Cathedral

Arte Antigua. You can reach further back into Portugal’s history at the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga. There is a lot of religious and royal art, although the Japanese Namban folding screens from the early 1600’s depicting the early interaction with the Portuguese are fascinating. The Portuguese arrived at Nagasaki in 1543 and the depictions of the arrival and trading are detailed yet slightly cartoonish.

Also worth a look is this painting of St. Vincent and the Portuguese court, dated from around 1470 with remarkably lifelike and expressive figures. No messing around when you have to fend off the Spanish while invading North Africa.

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Logistics

I stayed at the My Story Hotel Tejo at the northeast corner end of the Baixa, which was good as a base to explore the city.

In general, a good place to head out for the evening is Bairro Alto and I’d avoid the Baixa and Alfama as it tends to be a bit overrun. Some restaurants and pubs that worked out well were:

Ribadouro, Av. da Liberdade 155. Great fresh seafood, a bit pricey but worth it.

Mercado da Ribeira – Time Out Market, Av. 24 de Julho 49. Time Out Market has great variety – order self-serve and grab a communal spot on the tables.

Terras Gerais Bistro, Calçada Santana 70. Small Brazilian family operation, well worth it.

Picanha, R. das Janelas Verdes 96. Save your meat requirements for this place.

Varina da Madragoa, R. Madres 34. Neighborhood favorite of the late great author Jose Saramago.

Duque Brewpub, Calçada do Duque 51. Great Portuguese microbrews in the Bairro Alto.

The Beer Station, Largo duque de Cadaval 17.

Dois Corvos Cervejeira, R. Cap. Leitão 94.

Passes. Lisboa Story Centre, Praça do Comércio 78. You can pick up museum and transport passes here with the Lisboa Card, and this is worth it if you are going heavy on the museums – https://www.lisboacard.org/discounts/. If you just need a bus and metro pass, you can buy a Viva Viagem card at transit stations – if arriving at the airport you can start with the metro station there and go into town that way.

Malaga: Picasso at the Bullfight

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Malaga, port, Picasso’s birthplace and Andalusia’s second largest city. It isn’t the most obvious place to visit, in part because it’s a busy commercial hub, and also because it sits next to the Costa del Sol, Spain’s original bucket, spade, beer and chips (fries) destination. Spain was one of the first countries to embrace mass air travel tourism from the 1960s onwards, resulting in a mass seaside development down the coast that is best avoided. Malaga has a great airport and plenty of road and rail, and people often pass it by on their way to Granada, Cordoba or Morocco. They shouldn’t. Picasso left at 10 years of age when his family moved to A Coruna, taking a lot of southern Spanish themes that figure in his work, like the bulls he saw at the Malaga bullring as a child.

Malaga Bullring

Malaga is a good start or finish point for a visit to Andalucia or Morocco, and it is easy to miss the beachside developments on the highway or rail out.

If you haven’t seen enough ruins yet, the Roman theater and the Moorish fortresses – the Alcazaba and Gibralfaro Castle at the top – are fairly intact. Make sure that you hike up to the Mirador de Gibralfaro to check out the view across the harbor – well worth an evening walk.

The incomplete baroque cathedral constructed in the 16th-18th centuries provides the usual grand interior and a break from the sunlight.

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Malaga hosts a major Spanish film festival each Spring…

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It’s Spain so eating well is expected. Churros and coffee start the day.

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The central market (Mercado Central de Atarazanas) is a good place to pick up supplies or get a snack.

Logistics

Malaga works. The Maria Zambrono railway station is less than 2 km southwest of the city center, with the bus station just north of it. The airport is served by metro line and about 30 minutes to the city. The port ferry terminal handles service to Morocco (Melilla and Tanger Med,) but note that these are 5-7 hour journeys. Melilla is a useful access point for eastern Morocco, although remember that the Tarifa ferries can drop you in Tangier city in an hour. If you are off to Tangiers read this https://wp.me/p7Jh3P-sH.

I stayed at the Casual Malaga hotel just west of the city center, which worked out well for a night. If you want to pull out the wallet, the Parador next to Gibralfaro Castle is an impressive location with sea views across the harbor.

Foodwise it’s hard to go wrong with the many tapas bars around the city, and the usual rule of thumb of going where it’s busy and Spanish-frequented applies. The areas north of the cathedral through to Calle Alamos are busy. Cortijo de Pepe (Plaza de la Merced 2) worked out well.

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If you are seeking a Spanish craft brew then La Madriguera (Calle Carretería 73) and La Botica de la Cerveza (Calle Victoria, 13) are worth a visit.

Porto: Birthplace of Gout

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Porto is Portugal’s second city, located near the mouth of the Douro River, and grew as a hub for Portugal’s wine industry with burgeoning global trade in the 17th and 18th centuries. Britain, Portugal’s oldest ally united in mutual fear and hatred of the Spanish Empire, became a major consumer of Portuguese wine, not least because periodic warfare with France choked off traditionally sourced French wine supplies.

Sweet desert wines from the Douro such as port generated one of the world’s earliest global brands, and also one of the first lifestyle ailment epidemics (excluding anything that the Romans got up to) – that being gout amongst the English upper classes in the 18th century. Port is as sugary and cloying now as it was in 1780.

Porto lies across rolling hills, with the main city rising on the north side of the banks of the Douro. You are in northern Iberia facing the Atlantic, so it is a city built to deal with wind and rain.

It’s Portugal, so the funky azulejo tiling brightens up the facades.

The riverside Ribeiro area has mostly been converted from dockside to a touristy pedestrianized strip. Nice for a walk but probably not to stay, unless you plan to head for the port company warehouses on the south side of the river. If you are in the mood for a walk or jog, Porto’s famous 19th century iron bridge, designed by Luis Eiffel, has a lower level that you can access to get to the south side.

A good way to get yourself on the road to a lifestyle ailment is to try the delicious yet artery-clogging Porto specialty, the Francesinha (roughly translated as “Little Frenchie”). It’s a steak, ham and sausage sandwich (white bread), covered in melted cheese and then doused in a slightly spicy tomato sauce. It is a recent creation, inspired by Portuguese workers returning from France in the 1960s and wondering how best to adapt a croque monsieur. The version served at Cervejaria Brasão Aliados is a fine example and comes with additional sauce in a jug, which you will need to help wash this down.

Porto is well visited and you have to balance the character of an interesting northern Portuguese town with a bit of a Euro tourist trap down by the river, which now has it’s own cable car running along the south riverside for some reason. Porto is a food-centric town and there are plenty of places to pick up something to take home, helpful when you are back to eating salads in a large industrial city between daily commutes. The historical Bolhao Market on Rua Formosa, in the center, is worth a visit.

Torre dos Clerigos

There are plenty of wine and port wine tasting operations throughout the city – the port wine lodges south of the river are the obvious destination but are well-visited. One location north of the river that looks promising is run by the wine association and housed in the old stock exchange building, the Palácio da Bolsa on Rua Ferreira Borges (see https://www.viniportugal.pt/OgivalRooms). Be ready for a bit of a line.

Porto hosts the National Museum Soares dos Reis, Portugal’s first public art museum. The Portuguese continue to meditate on their colonial past, which is what this duct tape horse is about, probably.

It has a neat collection of Japan 16th century screens that depict their interaction with early Portuguese traders. The other major art destination is the Fundacao Serralves for contemporary art.

The azulejo-tiled architecture takes a step up when applied to grander buildings, both outside:

Carmo Church

Church of Saint Ildefonso

And inside. Porto’s 19th-century railway station, Porto São Bento, has tiled depictions of various major battles, although you have to go to the Campanhã station, to connect to the mainline intercity service south to Lisbon or north to Spain.

Logistics

Porto is a popular holiday and weekend break location in Europe – I found staying north of the Ribeira provided better value but wherever you go book ahead as best you can. There are plenty of apartment rentals that are comfortable and cost-effective, just check to see if they admit you by appointment. The metro works well to get you out to the Campanhã railway station or to the airport.

Food options are extensive across all the value ranges, some of the ones that worked out well were:

Cervejaria Brasão Aliados, Rua de Ramalho Ortigão 28 – quality gastro pub offering.

Antunes, Rua do Bonjardim 525 – very typical and not fussy.

tascö, Rua do Almada 151A – casual place with the Portuguese favorites.

Portuguese craft beer is getting a well-deserved reputation and some good venues are:

Letraria Craft Beer Garden, Rua da Alegria 101 – if you go to just one, go here.

Beer Warehouse, Rua Formosa 130

Pattria – Craft Beer, Rua dos Mártires da Liberdade 30

Tarifa: Gateway to Europe

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Tarifa is a small surfing and windsurfing town in the Gibraltar Straits that gets big Atlantic weather which converts into great surfing waves, windsurfing wind, and in turn, into tourism revenue, even from people like me who don’t surf. Many people like surfing but not surfing is also fine – Charlie didn’t surf in Apocalypse Now, as we know.

It’s mainland Europe’s southernmost point, and was important to the Moors who occupied southern Spain for centuries – it’s name has nothing to do with customs tariffs, but most likely named after Tarif ibn Malik, a Berber conqueror of southern Spain.

Even if you don’t surf, it’s a small seaside town that’s good for a stop. You can get the ferry to Morocco, hike in Estrecho National Park, or go to the beach. It’s less than 2 hours by bus to Cadiz (https://www.aerotrekka.com/cadiz-arsenal-amor/) and under 3 hours to Malaga. The old town and its fortifications are a quick wander and you get great views across the straits.

Puerta de Jerez, Old Town Tarifa

View from Tarifa castle across the straits to Morocco – Tangier is further off to the right (Tangier review here https://www.aerotrekka.com/the-intercontinental-ferry-to-tangiers/).

Tarifa gets plenty of visitors and it must be heaving in Summer, but it’s relaxed enough in the Spring and I didn’t see a single tour bus while I was there.

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Estrecho National Park is immediately northeast of town – there is an easily findable coastal trail leading northeast out of Plaza Miramar and Calle Independencia that gives you great ocean views, that you’ll share with some circumspect and mellow Spanish cattle. There’s a good out-and-back trail that stays close to the ocean and passes by small farms and deserted Spanish army bunkers.

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Logistics

I stayed at the Hotel Convento Tarifa, a few minutes north of the old town at Calle Batalla del Salado 14. Clean and reasonable, with large airy rooms.

There are plenty of good food options in Tarifa with decent visitor traffic year round. The Cervecería BeerShop Tarifa at Calle Nuestra Senora de la Luz 5 is a good place to try Spanish microbrews and if you can’t make it to Morocco try the Mandragora on Independencia 5 for Moroccan cooking. La Taperia at 47 Calle Batalla del Salado is a bit more local and low key and good for local tapas.

Tarifa’s bus stop is further along Calle Batalla del Salado, about 10 minutes from the old town gate and just north of the Repsol gas station. It doesn’t advertise opening hours but did have a ticket office open the morning I left. The downtown tourist office at Paseo de la Alameda keeps a bus schedule and there are frequent departures to Cadiz and Malaga (via Algeciras).

If you are taking the ferry to Tangiers, you can buy tickets at the ferry terminal immediately south of town. Tarifa is the shortest sea route to Tangiers, although there are also services ex Algeciras and Malaga. There are two lines operating at Tarifa (Intershipping and FRS) so even if you go in blind you can usually get a daytime departure within the next few hours. One wrinkle with ferries to Tangiers is to ensure you are going to Tangiers City. There are also ferries to Tangiers Med, which is a newer port located about 55km east of the town.

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