Ceuta en 13:24

The first post had to be about Ceuta, the city where I've been living during 12 years (most part of my life). Although I was born here (and my family is from here), I moved there one month after my 4th birthday. Whereas people say that Ceuta (What is it?,no?) is a poor city, because it's in the north of Africa, I must say (as a ceuti) that it isn't true: Ceuta is a modern city (I haven't still seen some things of Ceuta in Extremadura) which have a very interesting bussiness projection, due to its magnific port (one of the most important of the Mediterranean Sea, because it's in a strategic geographical situation).

Furthermore, Ceuta can say it's the only city in Spain that decided to be spanish. The reason was the following: In 1640, as we known, there were independestist revolutions in Cataluña and Portugal (in that age Portugal was a part of the Spanish Kingdom). The king's assistors centred the power of the army in Cataluña, and left Portugal. Then the last one got its independence, and Ceuta was asked about the country it would like to be part of (because Ceuta was originally conquered by the Portuguese, in 1415,leading the army the King Don João I, John I), by referendum. The city finally decided to stay with Spain.
But the history of this city is bigger than you can think (they were there fenicians,greeks,romans, arabs...), it's has sufferred great sieges of different Kingdoms (one of the hardest was against an English-Dutch fleet ), there are legends telling that in its small nearly islands were hidden treasures of pirates, or bases of them (El "Desnarigado" is one of the most know, he was a pirate whose nose was cutted as punishment by his crimes)

I could be writing for hours but I never would arrive to the end (because Ceuta has a lot of things to tell), so I recommend to all people who read this post to visit Ceuta; I'm sure you will like it very much.

As a curiosity, you can see that the flag of ceuta is the same that the Lisbon's flag, and its coat of arms is nearly identical to the portuguese one in the flag of this country.

Links about Ceuta:

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceuta (not very well, because there aren't only nine schools in Ceuta, as the article say, between other things)

* http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceuta (in spanish, but much better)

* http://www.conoceceuta.com/ (Page for tourists)

* http://www.ceuta.es/ (The official page)

Plaza de África after the visiting of the spanish Kings



The Dragons's building



Regulares 54th Headquarter


Real Walls at night (note the Portuguese
architecture)