So it’s tchau to Portugal and hola again to Spain. I will miss the Portuguese people, who are so helpful, polite and respectful, and of course the pastel de nata, but I am SO glad to be back in a country where I can order coffee and beer and have some idea what’s written on the menu!
I’m very excited with our first stop, Jerez de Frontera and the Famous Motor GP track. We only have a couple of days here so it’s going to be a quick look at the track, half day trip to Cadiz, drink some sherry, eat some tapas and we’re off again.
We’re beginning to understand that the Australian version of ‘parking available’ and the European version are quite different. In Australia ‘parking available’ means on the property, so you don’t have far to walk to your accommodation. In Europe it may mean that, or it may mean there is parking on the ring road around the town which may be oh, 200-300m away, even more. Which may not sound a lot, but is quite a long way when it is around 36degrees and you have a suitcase, a backpack and 3 0r 4 bags of food etc to carry. Fortunately our host had a car so he met us at the car park and drove us back to the apartment.
‘It was a a lovely little apartment but like a lot of the places we have stayed very small and quite stuffy with a lack of windows to the outside. Our host asked us to be careful with the air con because of the cost of electricity, after a couple of hours we decided that we would leave some extra euros for him and be comfortable! Are you seeing a recurring theme here? Comfort! I loved the outside patio, it looks lovely in the photos don’t you think? Even allowing for the plastic greenery!
‘The reality was it was about the size of a largish toilet walls on all sides but no roof, if you sat sideways your knees almost touched the opposite wall, and you couldn’t sit at the table with the doors on either end open. Nevertheless, it was outside and we ate out there.
The visit to the MotoGP track was very exciting, although I think I was more excited than the Driver. It was a practice day so we got to see some Superbikes on the track. I will be back for a MotoGP!
Next stop Cadiz. I can never resist a photo of arches through arches on bridges!
Surrounded almost entirely by water, Cadiz is said to be the oldest city in Europe, first established in 1100BC.
Lonely Planet says it so well ‘a romantic tumble of sinuous streets’. It is a mixture of all sorts of architecture, you never know what you will see around the the next corner, or indeed where that street will lead. Like many European towns, I can’t read the maps and just heading in the general direction can lead to all sorts of places, but not necessarily your destination!
In the early 16th century Cadiz was a launching point for the journey to the newly discovered lands of America and was later raided by Sir Francis Drake, in the struggle to gain control of trade with the New World. In the early 19th century Cadiz became the bastion of Spain’s anti-monarchist, liberal movement, as a result of which the country’s first Constitution was declared here in 1812. So much history, and I know it’s not taught so much in schools now, but one of the things I have loved about this trip through Spain and Portugal is seeing all these names and places I learnt about come to life.
It was a Sunday and a day of religious celebration with processions winding endlessly throughout the city all morning and well into the afternoon, with bands, young boys and girls dressed in white with proud mothers hovering over them, the exotic fluttering of fans ever-present, statues hoisted high above the crowds, quite a spectacle.
After a delicious lunch of gazpacho, fried fish and people watching, we headed back to our apartment in Jerez for a siesta. I’m well in to this siesta thing now!
‘One thing I’m not so great at is waiting until 9:00pm for restaurants to open. This is one of the reasons we often have our evening meal in our accommodation. I can make until 8:00pm, especially knowing it’s going to be light until 10:00pm. So on the rare occasions that we do eat out at night we are always on the lookout for cafes that are open early. We found one overlooking a small square where on display there were some entries in a competition for altar decorations. We enjoyed a lovely meal of tapas watching a group of teenagers, who looked like any group of teenagers sitting around chatting and checking out their phones and each other.
However it seemed like they were the creators of the winning entry because after a while there was a flurry of activity with photos being taken and kissing and hugging and back slapping.
A group of these young men then dressed in religious garb, and joined in with yet another procession, accompanied by another band, more children in white, middle-aged and elderly people walking slowly and proudly behind a religious standard, with the always present fan swishing in time with the music. We had by that stage left our table but we were then stuck with the procession between us and the way home, and it was a very long procession! We eventually took advantage of a lull in music and a standstill of marching to excuse our way through.
The highlight of our next day was a visit to a Sherry Bodega to learn about and taste the authentic sherry. Like champagne, this wine can only be called sherry if it comes from the designated region, in this case the Sherry Triangle, bounded by the towns of Jerez de la Frontera, Sanlúcar de Barrameda and El Puerto de Santa María. Long story short, the grapes are fermented, brandy is added and the wines transferred to half-filled casks and seeded with flor yeast which grows and covers the wine. It is important that this is not disturbed. After a couple of years the casks are transferred to the top of a solera, or pyramid where it is aged. The sherry is bottled from the bottom layer of casks. If you are interested to know more, there is a good explanation about different types of sherry and the process here. https://www.danmurphys.com.au/liquor-library/wine/varieties/sherry-apera
We visited Bodegas Tradición, a relatively new Bodega but one which hand bottles and labels it’s product, a high quality range of sherry, which bears no resemblance to my mother’s flagon of Kaiser Stuhl Cream Sherry. As well as the the sherry, it also houses a small but very interesting collection of Spanish paintings that includes works by Picasso, El Greco, Goya, Veláquez and Zurbarán.
The tasting was great, there was lots of information about which sherry you drink with different foods, with food accompanying the 5 different wines we tasted. The sherry produced by this Bodega was expensive, around €50 a bottle, I was dying to ask if you couldn’t afford €250, which was a good ‘all-rounder’ but there were quite a few English speaking people there who obviously knew a lot about wine, so I didn’t! Although most of the sherries were quite dry, my favourite was the sweet Pedro-Ximinez which goes well with dark chocolate. I actually have a bottle of this type of sherry at home which I bought for a recipe, I will try it when I get home. I don’t think I paid anywhere near €50 though.
While I was in Cadiz I saw a Camino sign, there is apparently a Camino between Cadiz and Seville. It is only 5 or 6 days, so when we return for the MotoGP I would love to do that, and there is certainly more exploring to do in Jerez and Cadiz!
