Tips for Andalucia with kids?

[franch]

All booked - staying in a villa in Cadiz from late July to mid Aug.

2 girls, 6 and 8.

Must see/do tips?

Great places to eat? (kids are adventurous eaters)

Thanks!

Anyone?

where, in cadiz city or province? will you have a car?

We spend a 6 weeks in Andalucia.

Went here www.realescuela.org/ing/home.htm we are not horsey at all but we had a guide who explained it all to us.

Visit Ronda, loads there to see and just a different view compared to the Jerez area. About 90mins from Cadiz as the the roads are narrow and winding as you get closer to Ronda. We had our own Garmin and it did a good job, just once it didn't pick a new Motorway near Jerez.

Loved Seville, you can do a day trip but you won't do the city justice. Loads for kids there to do.

Enjoy Cadiz, we were there for the annual Cadiz Festival and it was lovely but that means we didn't get to explore it that much. My kids are 12 and 4....The Festival was at the Catholic Square (cant remember name) and there are loads of places to eat but we found it a bit pricey not sure if they had prices inflated for that day. There is a biggish mall with typical food chain stores too.

If you are going to go to Seville I can give you some names of where we ate and had some lovely food and tapas.

In the province lagartija, but not far from the city. Will have a car.

Great tips thanks Munashe. We will go to Seville so further detail would be great!

It is VERY hot in Seville at the moment. (I live in Seville) Today is around 40º for instance.

OK.

It's scorching in July/August. Most people spend as much of the summer as possible at the beach. Nice beaches in Cádiz province are El Palmar (not a lot there but nice sand), Bolonia (has ancient ruins on the beach). Most beaches have a chiringuito or beach bar to eat at. Vejer de la Frontera is a prettty white hill top town with lovely views and pretty squares. Near Vejer is a beach called something like Cabo de Trafalgar which is nice.
Jerez has the sherry bodegas. The Tio Pepe one is nice and you go round on a little train and see the barrels signed by famous people and the mice who sneak up little ladders and drink the sherry. Tasting session too afterwards.
Not been to the horsey thing in Jerez but it's supposed to be excellent.
Sevilla has Parque Maria Luisa, nice and shady and you can ride in a horse and cart (and also ride all round the city in one) I think it's about 30 euros for an hour but I'm not sure, it's been a long time since I did it.
In the old expo site there's Isla Mágica theme park and the Pabellón de la Navegacíon all about Seville and the sea etc. Not been, but it's supposed to be good. There's also the cathedral with its tower, La Giralda, which you can climb. The Reales Alcazares (palace) is like a mini Alhambra with lovely gardens. There's also Casa de Pilatos which is similar on a smaller scale again, it's near the giant Setas at Plaza Encarnación.
In Cádiz itself there's a camera oscura, which is very interesting, but you'd have to google.
There are roman ruins near Cádiz called Medina Sidonia and near Seville called Itálica.
In terms of food, I'd say try granizada de limon to drink (like a lemon slush puppy) and tinto con limon (red wine with fanta lemon). Typical tapas:
all types of fish, especially in Cádiz
caracoles
ensaladilla rusa
papas alinadas and other aliños
solomillo al whisky/roquefort/pimienta
espinacas
revuelto (like scrambled egg with garlic, asparagus, prawns etc)
montaditos (little toasted buns with all types of fillings)
aargh, can't think of anything else.....
As I say, I live in Seville, so let me know if you have any more questions, I'll do my best to answer them!

We stayed not far from there recently, at La Barrosa, a huge long beach, very clean with lots of beach cafes and a park in the pines that has a little model pirate ship to play on.

In Cadiz town there is a little park with model dinosaurs and a playground. There's a water park not far away at Puerto Santa Maria, we didn't go as DD is only 3 but would I loved that sort of thing when your DDs' age, on another day you could take the ferry from Cadiz to Puerto Santa Maria (or vice versa) just for a little cooling ride, many fried fish places in Puerto (not a particularly pretty town though).

Yes, La barrosa and Chiclana are nice. Also Zahara de Los Atunes is a nice (but very busy in summer) fishing village. I agree Ronda is nice, as is Arcos de la Frontera and Grazalema in the mountains is supposed to be beautiful.

Sanlucar de Barrameda has horse races on the beach in August

Agree Ronda is fab

we've had great days out in Gib too, but there are border issues there atm which probably cause more problems than it's worth

Our holidays have generally been further E so most of the places we've been to are a bit far from Cadiz - but we have driven from Gib N towards Jerez & then E, & were very struck by the storks' nests on top of all the telegraph poles along the railway line

If Fuengirola isn't too far, the zoo there is brilliant, esp the lemur enclosure

Many thanks for the advice everyone! I will go through it all asap.

Ponders: what are the border issues with Gibraltar? I can't find anything official on the Foreign Office website, other than a mention of queues getting in and out. My parents are going to be there during our stay, and we were planning to visit them on my mum's birthday.

it may have got a bit better now, franch. I think it was mostly because Prince Edward went to Gib as a Jubilee thing - that annoyed the Spanish, so they were inspecting everybody's papers as they came off the Rock, & people were having to queue for literally hours.

when you're just visiting you can park at La Linea & get a bus across, & that might be ok. (you could walk too but it's generally very hot...)

\link{\oh, not Prince Edward - it was to do with a fishing boat incident???}

that was May, I have a FB friend who lives on Gib & she hasn't posted about the queues for a couple of weeks now - \link{http://www.yourgibraltartv.com/ygtv-news/written-news/1798-jul-13-frontier-queues-grid-lock-gibraltar\this was the last time on 13th July}

\link{http://cheeseweb.eu/2012/07/gibraltar-is-weird/\this is interesting}. waiting to cross the runway & getting close to the apes were things we enjoyed a lot too

Thanks Ponders. We're flying to Gibraltar so I guess we'll find out about the queues when we arrive ......