El Puerto de Santa María, the home of Rafael Alberti

Rafael Alberti (El Puerto de Santa María, Cádiz, 1902-1999)

A free poet

Eternal friend of Federico García Lorca, Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel, who he met at the Student Residence in Madrid and who pertained to the Generation of '27.

Alberti spent his childhood in El Puerto, which had a lifelong impact on him and to where he returned once democracy was restored. He was a member of Parliament for the communist party. With the collection of poems Marinero en tierra (1924) he won the National Prize for Literature. All of his work is impregnated with salt mines, the bay and the Cadiz sea. It was his life, his other life.

A salty flavour

Alberti said he was born the night of an "unexpected storm" and in "one of those white ports that overlooked the perfect Bay of Cadiz”. This was his childhood, overlooking the sea, surrounded by wineries (his family were down-on-their-luck winemakers). He lived on Calle Santo Domingo, in a typically bright, Andalusian house where the foundation named after him can be found today.

'Marinero en tierra' (Sailor on land)

"When I had just turned 15 years old, they tore me away from the sea, changing me forever into a sailor on land," wrote Rafael Alberti. He moved to Madrid and left behind the beaches of La Puntilla and Valdelagrana, the pine forest and the San Antón Dunes, the taste of the sea from eternal nights staring at the moon, with rumours of the Guadalete who died at sea, ploughed through by a small steamer ship carrying absent-minded peasants and passengers around the Bay of Cadiz. Using these memories and experiences he wrote Mar y Tierra, his first book, which was later converted into Marinero en tierra (1924).

'La arboleda perdida'

His memories always wandered back to Cadiz and its bay, and this was even more true when in 1940 he was exiled to Argentina. His ties to his town, its sailors and its people were so close that in La Arboleda perdida (1975) he explored his childhood memory and immersed himself in the first years of his exile. Rafael Alberti returned to Spain and was elected as the communist member of parliament for Cadiz (1977), but he gave up his seat to continue being "a poet of the street". These were years of reunions and of recovering the woods he had never lost, at least not in his memory.

Losing your senses

The locals remember it was usual to see the poet stroll along the "Ribera del Marisco" and chat with old fishermen. This is a place where you can lose your senses. Although the poet's work includes gastronomic memories that are fair, it must be said that in El Puerto de Santa María there are almost 80 restaurants, some of which serve excellent seafood soup, 'piriñaca' and shrimp fritters. There are times when it is essential to explore its streets: Carnival; Easter Week, with the rhythm of drums; the Festival of the Courtyards; the Spring Fair and the maritime procession of El Carmen. If you want sun, sea and sand, there are 16 kilometres of fine golden beaches.

Walk 1: Rafael Alberti Foundation - San Marcos Castle - Calle Larga y Cielos - Plaza de los Jazmines with Palacio de Medinaceli.

Walk 2: Steam boat from Cadiz Port around the Bay - La Puntilla and Valdelagrana beaches - Mouth of the Guadalete - San Antón Dunes - Los Toruños y Pinar de la Algaida Marshes - Los Toruños Beach - Vista Hermosa Beach - Puerto Sherry.

Walk 3: Prioral Church - Puerta del Perdón - La Victoria Monastery - Plaza del Polvorista (with the palaces of Vizarrón Palaces or Casa de las Cadenas; Aguado or Conde de Montelirios - Cavalry Headquarters.

Walk 4: Old Fish Market (Lonja and "Resbaladero") - Grocery market - Bullring like a Roman coliseum - Wine and Brandy Route.