Sherry and Tapas Day

Happy Jerez (Hear-eth) de la Frontera Sherry Day!  I give it that name in hindsight because of how much sherry we/I drank today.  But let's start the day with a discourse on coffee service, focusing on coffee cups.  We are now in a hotel that serves you breakfast instead of letting you do your own selective grazing over tables heaped with porcine and high carb goodies.  This is not an attempt on their part to limit your consumption as you could ask for anything on the menu multiple times, I think it's just that they don't have enough room in the relatively small dning area.  I'm also sensing there is some vying for "uppity-ness" between hotels over who has the fanciest cutlery and dishes.  Most of the hotels we've stayed at have the fairly standard tiny and tinier white porcelin cups for you coffee or espresso.  Today we were treated to what a four-finger mug lover like me calls a "foo-foo pinch cup".  Arguably charming and distinctive, these vintage vessels require a certain mount of strength between the thumb and forefinger to operate.  I always have a little anxiety during the transportation of such a cup from its saucer to my lips fearing failure of my digits to keep the cup from rotating perpendicular to my lap en route.  I have no cooth.

We had some time on our own after breaky to explore the Cathedral, Alcazar, and surrounding streets, quite a lovely morning. And sunny!

Cathedral from our roof courtesy of Mark

The fragrant orange blossom

A Canary Island palm in the Alcazar

We all met up again late morning for our tour of the Tio Pepe Bodega and tasting experience.  Early on in the tour, we learned that according to the Guinness World Records, the world's largest working weather vane is this one...

Our local guide enthusiasticly told us how many thousand of kilos it weighs, but I've forgotten.  Consuming a lot of sherry may be why.  And it's late so I'm going to spare you much reading and just share some photos.  Are those sighs of relief I hear?

Inside one of the many aging rooms

Calle Ciegos, famous grapevine covered street

Mary and the oldest vine at Tio Pepe

The famous glass of sherry left out each night for the mice

SOME of the sherry consumed!

Tiniest loaf of bread with brass fork

We ended our day with a half hour drive to the seaside (as in Atlantic, not Mediterranean) town of Sanlúcar de Barrameda where we had a most delicious selection of tapas at this unpreposing but apparently world celebrated bar, Casa Balbino.  Yum!

That's all folks, and as our travel maven, Mary, would say after having as much sherry as I had, "Buenos nachos!"