Jerez, A town for drinking

I drove us from Ronda up on top of a mountain to Jerez de la Frontera. This city is the home of Jerez Sherry. The most famous Spanish Sherry in the world. The road was beautiful down from our mountain top home of Ronda through the mountains towards Jerez. A lot of Spaghetti westerns with Clint Eastwood were filmed in this area. It looks like the southwest.

We finally arrived in Jerez. We dropped our rental car off at the airport and took a cab to our hotel. I never would have found the hotel (it doesn’t have a number) and the streets are a crazy maze. In a word, the hotel is a dump. We have travelled before and sometimes the Gods aren’t with you.

This was one of those times.

We don’t particularly like Jerez, but this is probably colored by our dislike of our hotel. Best characterized by one person behind a desk pointing us to where we could schlep our luggage. The good news is this town has lots of bars.

When we asked our one person working in the hotel if the Church we wanted to visit was open she said: “If the door of the church is open, they are open, if the door is closed they are closed”. With that sage advise we headed out. The door was closed.

We finally went to the Tio Pepe Bodega (this is the Spanish name for a winery). Took a tour, drank a lot of Sherry, Jerez becoming tolerable. There were some neat things at the winery. The woman is standing in front of a still that was used to create brandy. I had never seen a still before. The new ones at the winery look just like the still you see but are bigger. Celebrates sign the wine barrels. Here are some cool ones.

We returned to our room feeling we couldn’t wait to get out of town tomorrow. The only person working at the hotel recommended a bar, but of course we couldn’t find it, given the twisted streets. Everyone we asked was helpful (including a policeman) but we never found the place. We finally were at a typical square with several outdoor cafes and actually had some good tapas and a bottle of wine.

There isn’t a blade of grass in this city. It is a heavy stone buildings  and cobblestone streets. At night people come out and drink in the many bars that line the streets and plazas. I understand why they drink so much here. Its nice when you are in city that the only thing you can think of is to drink, that it is famous for its wine. Convenient.