2024 Spring Festival Europe 6 Countries Day 05: Spain's Overseas Territory – Ceuta

📍 Milan · 👁 4994 reads · ❤️ 1 likes

Promised a 6-country Europe trip, why start from day 5 and even set foot on African soil? This must start from Ceuta. The full name of Ceuta is the Autonomous City of Ceuta (Spanish: Ciudad Autónoma de Ceuta), a status between an ordinary city and an autonomous region. Before gaining autonomy, Ceuta was part of the Province of Cádiz in southern Spain. Starting from day 5, I believe visiting Ceuta is one of the highlights of this trip, so let me talk about it first.

Ceuta has many historical sites and attractions, including cultural heritage and natural landscapes. With only one day of play, the Ceuta city walls near the port, Plaza de África, along with the nearby Cathedral of Africa, the Church of Our Lady of Africa, and the Ceuta City Hall became the best choices.

This is a view of part of Ceuta port taken from the ferry. In the picture, the name of Ceuta port should be in Spanish and English.

My reasons: First, Ceuta is located on the African continent. Traveling to Europe and getting to step onto Africa is a bonus; for most people, setting foot on Africa is a rare opportunity.

Second, on the round-trip ferry, you can observe British Gibraltar from near to far and far to near.

What a busy strait! Being there makes you realize its important role in shipping.

Third, traveling from mainland Spain's southernmost point to Ceuta requires crossing the Strait of Gibraltar by ferry, which allows you to experience a sea voyage and place yourself in the important geographical concept of the Strait of Gibraltar—very meaningful.

We chose to take the ferry from Algeciras to Ceuta. In fact, several city ports in southern Spain have ferries to Ceuta, such as Algeciras, Cádiz, and La Línea de la Concepción, with different distances and times. The port of Algeciras should be the closest, with a journey of about 70 minutes.

Before leaving the country, I searched online for guides to Ceuta. Probably because few domestic tourists visit Ceuta, the guides were not detailed. The actual process of taking the ferry is simple. First, buy a ticket. From the round-trip experience later, February is clearly the off-season—a ship with hundreds of seats had a occupancy rate of less than 10%. You can buy tickets at the port window. I tried buying tickets online on an international port ticket website the night before, but when I reached the credit card payment step, it kept prompting me to wait and didn't succeed. The next day, I asked at the port ticket office about the reason. The ticket seller said the fare had changed, so online payment couldn't proceed—meaning you couldn't successfully buy tickets on that site.

If taking a taxi to Algeciras port, no inspection is needed; the taxi can take you directly to the ticket office inside the port. If walking, you need to enter the port from the entrance shown in the picture above and walk to the ticket office.

Ticket price: Round trip €51.10 per person.

For the convenience of netizens finding the port entrance, I have included a street view of the building opposite the port entrance for reference.

From the picture, there are three main ferry companies operating between Algeciras and Ceuta: BALEARIA, FRS, and TRASMEDITERRANEA. Departure times vary, roughly one every half hour. We chose BALEARIA.

This ferry is a passenger-cargo ship—the top one or two decks are passenger cabins, and the lower deck can carry vehicles. Self-driving tourists can buy additional tickets for their vehicles, which is also convenient.

The waiting room was not crowded, spacious and bright, with complete facilities.

After boarding began, we entered via this passage and boarded through the gangway.

The passenger cabin of BALEARIA's ferry—look how few people there are! It could be described as almost empty. The ship's facilities are quite complete, with various entertainment facilities, a children's playground, a bar, a restaurant, etc.

After returning from Ceuta to Algeciras, we had to go through customs border control—just go through the door on the left. Actually, it was just scanning luggage and checking passports. Although the entire journey was within Spanish territory, they still checked our passports. Few people, no queue, very simple.

To be continued!

Travel Diary Table of Contents:

1. D5: Stepping onto African Soil – Ceuta

2. D5-1, Overview of Ceuta

3. D5-2, Why You Must Visit Ceuta When Traveling to Spain

4. D5-3, How to Get to Ceuta from Mainland Spain

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