92 String Duet: Folks in Spain Part 3: Jerez

After we left Granada we headed west looking for more fun and adventure. On the recommendation of Roman, who worked at the molino with us, we went to the village of Setenil de las Bodega. Setenil is famous for being built into the cliff sides of a gorge formed by the the Río Trejo.

This is kind of the main tourist drag with a few shops and loads of restaurants.

Hmmm... Are they related?

We're looking over the wall into the stream bed below. There were some guys clearing trees, and using a crane to hoist the remains out of the gorge. We wished we'd had such tools for clearing the firebreaks at the molino! :-)

Some of the streets even run under the cliff sides!

Here's a view of Setenil from an overlook above village. You can see the church atop a knoll, and if you look closely in the bottom of the picture you can see more buildings set into the cliff and under the overhang. What a neat place!

We left Setenil and wandered toward a place called Grazelama. Grazelama has the distinction of being the wettest village in all of Spain, and on this day it was true to form! It is indeed a beautiful green place for a reason!

We stopped on the pass west of Grazelama ...

For the outrageously beautiful scenery at the overlook. Loads of walking trails criss-cross this area, and we hope to return someday to explore them!

We followed the A382 for a while, and then wound our way to Arcos de la Frontera where we got out for a leg-stretch. The weather had cleared up nicely by then and the temperature was perfect!

Arcos is another fortress town, taken from the Visgoths by the Muslims in 711. It's easy to see why people built on these steep hilltops - easy to defend! It was conquered by the Catholics early on in the 1200's. It then formed part of the frontier (hence the name, Arcos de Frontera).

We drove most of the day and finally landed at our target, the lovely hilltop village of Medina Sidonia. Medina Sidonia is home to a 13th century fortress, which is now largely in ruins.

The village was at one time fortified and the remains of some of these walls can still be seen- for example behind the Iglesia Mayor shown above.

The village also boasts ruins of Roman streets and the remains of a sophisticated subterranean sewer system dating to the 1st century AD. Fascinating! Here's daD in the sewer.

dA boyZ having quality time while planning our upcoming ferries and taxi journies to Fès...

Melinda went for a sunrise walk and snapped these lovely pictures.

Here is the historic Arab gate of Medina Sidonia, Puerta de la Pastora, dating to the 10th century:

This 3,000 year-old village, like other villages we visited here, has witnessed many different cultures come and go, each leaving their mark. It is fascinating to discover how these historical influences meld together to form a unique entity. Andalucía truly is magical- a place where villages have Catholic Churches with elements of Muslim mosques, where unearthed Roman ruins are preserved & incorporated into new town structures, and where ancient whitewashed stone buildings whisper the their history on narrow, winding streets.

And! Like most places we've been, Medina Sidonia has its own flavor of The Dog Sign!

We took a day trip from Sidonia to the town of Jerez de la Frontera. In Spanish, Jerez is pronounced "her-eth" and is the word that means sherry (both words coming from the Arabic name for the city Sheris). It's worth mentioning that the Moors of Medieval Spain, despite the Muslim restriction of the use of alcohol, did create and partake in such fermented drinks - as they were considered medicinal.

This southwest corner of Spain is the sherry region, and in order for the beverage to be called sherry legally it has to come from here. There are quite a few bodegas (wineries), and we strongly believe that we should intimately experience the cultural heritage of the places we visit so, of course, we toured a bodega!

We went to Gonzalez Byass (creators of the famed 'Tio Pepe'), one of the largest bodegas, and engaged ourselves for several hours wandering their yards with a guide, taking in the wonderful smells of the cask rooms, and generally having a grand time with each other. The tour was a bit touristy, but it simply added to the experience and we were able to enjoy and see the humor in it.

Tio Pepe (Uncle Joe) whose real name was Josè Ángel de la Peña, was the maternal uncle of Don Manuel María González Ángel, who founded the bodega in 1835. Manuel María was a commercial clerk in Cadíz, and saw large amounts of wine being exported from the quayside. He petitioned his uncle, Tio Pepe, for funds to start a bodega.

In 1844 a butt (cask) of sherry was sent to England, but the agent in England didn't think the bland-looking wine would go anywhere at all. Meanwhile, a butt had also been sent to America where it was instantly loved. It didn't take too long for the English attitude to turn around, and before long the export business was booming. The rest is, they say, history!

Tio Pepe is home to the largest wind-vane in the whole world, if you can believe it!

As part of the tour we went for a train ride to a vineyard. Here we are in the train....

And here's the "train"!

And the "vineyard"!

It was a dressed-up pickup truck that was pulling the train cars, and they dressed it up really nicely. We hopped off and on the train at different parts of the bodega, which was nice because the entire place was huge! Acres and acres of big old stone buildings housing the sherry casks, and lots of displays for us to look at to learn about making sherry.

One of the more interesting places was the cask rooms where celebrities have signed casks.

This cask is signed by Paco de Lucia, who is one of the most famous flamenco guitarists. Melinda wanted her photo in front of this cask because he's pretty much a guitar hero! You can see some excellent footage here:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ToaqW28CV6o

Other casks were signed by famous athletes, politicians, and famous actors. There were seven huge casks that were signed by the Queen and six of her children, too! Rumor has it the Queen can stop by any time she wants and have a taste of sherry from her own cask.

Within the bodega the streets are covered by nets, and ancient huge grape vines grow up over the street. We'd love to be here in the full summer when the fines are filled in and the streets are all shady!

This is the original room where Manuel María and Tio Pepe would host clients for tastings. The dust is pretty thick! They haven't disturbed anything since Manuel María's death.

We posed for pictures next to the famous Tio Pepe world-traveller...

And daD was feeling a little shy!

At the end of the tour we had our tasting of four pours of different sherrys and some tapas alongside. We generally favored the heavier, sweeter sherrys, but they all have their finer points and all are good in their own regard.

We had to stop for a picture of Sherry under the Sherry sign! (moM's name is Sherry, in case you didn't catch that.) So here she is! Sherry of the Frontier!

We headed south from Medina Sidonia to the Atlantic coast town of Vejer de la Frontera, and got a little beach time!

"Wooo!" moM looks like her toes are a little cold! daD's looking a little shocked, too!

Family photo! The weather was perfect, the scenery was beyond compare, and the company was lovely. What a fabulous trip this is!

And now a special treat! TWO SIGNS!

Still can't explain to you why we have a fascination with these signs. They're all different: some of them are quite comical, others are very matter-of-fact. The guy in the blue sign above looks a bit crude, and even looks like he's going to bare-hand the wee stack of billiard balls left behind by the pooch. And the fellow on the white sign has quite a flair and panache, and his dog is so elegantly poised, as if for an exhibition dog show where points are awarded for proper posture while .... Okay, we'll stop.

We continued onwards to Algeciras where we dropped off the rental car, and got a hotel room for the night. The next morning we hopped on a bus to Tarifa, about 1/2 hour west, for the ferry terminal.