Today we drove an hour and a half to Cadiz, a small island south of Sevilla. It is considered the oldest city in Europe. First this means we had to give up our great parking spot that we have held onto for four days.

Before we even got out of the neighborhood, we had our first mishap. Apple Maps navigation has a delay which makes quick turn decisions a crap shoot sometimes. Is the turn here or the next one? Well I chose the wrong turn and ended up driving down a mall full of shoppers that ended with a dead end. I had to back up the entire way because it was too narrow to turn around. So I found my self in an unfamiliar car backing up for 200 yards, dodging annoyed shoppers, while trying to avoid hitting a walls. The rest of the drive was smooth.

The first thing we noticed as we were coming onto the island of Cadiz, was lots of people walking. What I mean is that they had the look of people that parked far away and were walking towards the fun. You know what I mean. We have all seen it. We are sitting in traffic and we just haven’t clued in that there is no where to park where we are heading and all of those people walking have already learned this and are now parked in a “extended” lots and then walk back. That was not a great sign. But on the map we had quite a ways to go. So we figured they were all going to the gigantic cruise ships in the port across the street. So we figured if we could be patient and get past the docked cruise ships, we would be okay. We were very wrong.

Unknowingly, we happened to enter this island town of Cadiz right in the middle of Gay Pride/Carnival Festival that is known all around the world for it’s insane week long party plus there were 3 huge cruise chips of 3,000 plus passengers each that depart from their port this weekend. So this was the worst possible day to drive into that town.

However, we didn’t know any of this as we slowly crawled along the main road that surrounded the island, looking for a parking spot. An impossible task and we knew it. Every lot was full and very little street parking. We then made the stupid decision to turn inward to the island and try finding a spot on one of the small winding streets. We knew this was risky, but that is understatement. Right away, we saw the “Residents only” parking signs. Now we needed to get out of the maze, back onto the main road that circles the island. Anyone who has driven in Spain, Portugal or any old European city, knows these streets were built before cars were invented and driving in the old parts of town is crazy. The streets are very narrow and the turns extremely sharp. They are also not just streets but double as promenades for people shopping. You are basically driving through a mall of people that are watching you, to see if you will scrape the whole side of your rental car as you make this turn. What is more stressful is that there is really not a choice of direction. You are led by one way streets through a labyrinth and hope it leads to someplace you want. And of course each turn takes you down a street that is even narrower than the one you are on.

So as we approached a corner, we saw a crowd of people and we both realized we may have just driven into a parade. We were going to have to drive through the crowd.