Huelva, Spain, and Straits of Gibraltar

Huelva, Spain isn’t known for anything, as far as I can tell, but it’s the closest cruise ship stop to Seville, and so we spent a rainy Sunday there. A good number of fellow passengers did go to Seville, 90 minutes away, but not us.

The cruise port is five miles from town, at the end of a large industrial complex with refineries, copper smelting and fertilizer plants, and all manner of other really really big industrial properties. Huelva provides a free shuttle to town, or, I suspect, no one would go there at all.

 But the town’s tourism folks provided maps and a welcome glass of local wine for visitors.

Sunday morning I went alone to town. Not much going on a rainy Sunday, all shops closed, most markets, just tourism and souvenir shops had their doors open for the most part. I settled for window-shopping, saw my first flamenco store.

Some excitement was provided by a noisy crowd protesting killing of animals. Don’t know if this was anti-meat or anti-hunting, but there were lots of dogs in the crowd.

Our passage through the Straits of Gibraltar occurred about 1:30 in the morning, nothing to see there, folks. I still got a kick, however, of seeing the coastline lights of North Africa, knowing it was Right There.