La Caleta and the old town

Cádiz claims to be the oldest continuously inhabited city in Western Europe, and it sits on a spit of land almost surrounded by ocean. La Caleta is the small beach at the tip, framed by a castle at each end and backed by a white bathhouse pavilion on stilts.

Because the city is nearly an island, it takes light from every direction as the day moves — a rare thing on the Spanish coast, and it means there is almost always somewhere working. The Atlantic here is a colder, greyer blue than the Mediterranean, which changes the whole palette.

Behind the beach the old town is narrow, salt-worn and far less polished than Seville. Its shabbiness is the appeal; nothing here looks restored for visitors.