"Two Weeks on the Costa de la Luz" a Rota Travel Page by Hopkid

Work has sent me to many places, mostly within the U.S., but I have had the chance to travel to Guam and the Azores in the past on business. On both of those trips I took advantage and spent extra time in Hawaii and Lisbon (my first visit to mainland Europe), respectively. This year I was lucky enough to be asked to work on a project at a U.S. Naval Station in Rota, Spain. Rota is a small resort town on the other side of the Bahia de Cadiz from the bigger and more well-known city of Cadiz. Jerez de la Frontera is the closest large city, only 30 km or so north and is where one flies into when traveling to Rota. My wife and I had spent the week prior traveling around Andalucia, visiting Sevilla, Granada, and Cordoba.

I was in Rota for 2 weeks with two collegues from the States. During our time on the base we worked tirelessly in the high temperatures but managed to return to our hotel and go out and experience life in Rota at least through dinner someplace. Towards the end of our visit we managed to spend more time walking around and checking out some of the historic sites on offer. Rota definitey has a small town feel which was a nice change of pace after visting the much larger cities of Sevilla, Cordoba, and Granada. One could pick a worse place to spend a couple of days on holiday soaking up the sun on the beaches and enjoying some nice seafood at one of the many restaurants. It also served as a home base from where we could take short trips to nearby Jerez, Sanlucar de Barrameda, Acros de la Frontera, and a day trip to Ronda.

The main beach near the port area on the Bahia de Cadiz

Women cleaning a beautifully decorated side chapel inside the wonderful Parroquia de Nuestra Senora de la 0