It poured rain as we sailed toward Ceuta in the early morning, making it fun to leave our footsteps on Deck 10 where we walked.

Prepared and ready, we were off the ship first thing, making our way to our hike around Mont Hacho.  We are only here for half a day and need to make the most of our time.  Following the seafront, we do an abbreviated Statue walk – past Hercules and Pedro De Menese, the first governor of Ceuta.  Past the “Man of the Sea” and the cool tile mosaics embedded in the roadside wall and picturesque old architecture finally reaching the San Amaro Park with the deer sculptures at the entrance.

Here we begin our climb up through a lovely botanical park and into the wilderness of Mount Hacho.  The park itself is gorgeous, lots of different plantings but more exciting are the bronze statues all over – particularly the bear.  Yeah, well, we can’t resist bears!

There are aviaries with different birds, a barn area with goats up on the hill, and a really neat statue celebrating “Backpack Day” where old and young go out to picnic, spending a day in nature.

Then it is up, up, up we climb, following a trail along the edge of the hillside, looking out over the marina and city. It is a great hike, as well as great scenery – including a rainbow!  So fantastic.

The trail is supposed to go up and around  the military fortress of Monte Hacho, still an active base, and lead us to the other side of the island for our return trip.  But as those things go (and AllTrails – as usual), the trail dead ends at a fence and construction.  Oops.  So back around we go – but with a bonus – more gorgeous views and a full rainbow now.  Worth the dead-end detour.

We finally made our way out of the trail, back onto the road, where we could see the fort and the flag, but couldn’t access it.  Eh – there is a road, it is downhill, we can do that!  And we get another bonus of visiting the gardens of San Antonia Hermitage, a beautiful, whitewashed church perched high up on the hill.  From their back gardens, we can look down onto Santa Catalina, the park and trails we walked on our last visit here in May.  Plus, fabulous views of Gibraltar across the straits.  Excellent find.

Detouring back through Parque de San Amaro, we retrace our steps past the bear statue, the aviary to the Paseo de la Marina Espanola, skirting the water, past all the statues we saw early, adding a couple new ones, like the Fuente de las cuatro Culturas – fountain of the 4 cultures – and the series of statues that depict “peace, industry, commerce, the arts and Africa” finally passing the statue of Don Manuel Sanchez Ordonez, the “Tomato Seller who earned the affection of the people with his work and charm.” Sweet.

Remember the rainbow?  Well, you know what that means – rain!  We were lucky and missed the rain on our climb, but as we neared the pier on the seaside walk we got hit.  It wasn’t too bad, and fortunately when it was a torrential downpour we were in Lidl buying  provisions (snacks for the next few nights) and candy to give to the crew.  Then a quick stop at a discount store for, of all things socks, and we were back aboard with plenty of time to spare before our 2pm sailing. 

The rest of the afternoon is spent on the balcony snapping photos of Ceuta – you can see where we climbed up to the Mount Hacho (we ended up covering 6 miles and 500 feet of elevation gain) – and Gibraltar in the distance. Oh, and that wild farm animal carrier ship – full of cattle ready for slaughter.  Ugh.  We’ve seen them a couple times, but never this close up – fortunately they always anchor out in the bay so that the stench doesn’t pervade the city.  Eek.

Normal afternoon activities ensue, then tonight, our Italian Chef Table. Only 8 people this time, making it much nicer than Quest! The food was flawless – Vitello Tonnato, Caccuicco alla Livornese (seafood soup that even I liked), a fabulous Ravioli with Osso Bucco and Duck liver, Grilled Turbot for Ed, Beef Tenderloin and Beef Cheek for me, cheese plate and ending with Amaretto Tiramisu. Fantastic meal to end an excellent day.