Day 14 - Saturday January 31, 2026 - Cadiz Spain

I had a lovely day today.  My tour left at 8:45 am by bus for the town of Jerez and the Tio Pepe bodega.  

Sights as we drove to Jerez

Salt pans.  Salt from the ocean bring dried

This is where my knowledge of the definition of bodega went wrong. I was sure I knew it a bodega was and that I had picked a tour that would take me to shops or shopping. Well, when you look up the definition of bodega, the alternate definition is a winery. Oops. So our first step on the tour, about a 45 minute drive was to the TO Pepe winery where they make sherry.  

Before our tour, we walked around the small town of Jerez Looking at all of the squares and churches. It’s a small little town and very pretty. There were some Andalusian horses hooked up to some carriages. The owner of the carriage and horses allowed some to sit in the Carriage for free and have their pictures taken.

The old fortress near Tio Pepe

This windmill, belonging to the Tio Pepe winery is in the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest windmill in the world.

Tio Pepe himself 

We had about an hour tour of the Tio Pepe winery. I learned quite a bit about Sherry. All of the tasks and there were thousands of them were stacked four high.  The oldest on the bottom, of course. They take approximately 1/3 of the sherry out of the bottom cask and then take 1/3 of the second row Shari from the tasks and put them in the bottom row. They repeat with the third row, being partially emptied into the second row and finally the same with the fourth and third row. So it’s a blended sherry. No less than four years old and often eight years old before it’s bottled and sold.

Each cask had a country’s flag on it showing where they shipped their Shari

Casts four high

Entering the storage buildings where the casts

A celebration room or venue that could be rented for various parties

The area was full of orange trees.  The oranges were all over the ground. They were bitter oranges and can only be used for marmalade or marinade.

It’s various tasks were either signed or Dedicated to various celebrities

We went to one room where celebrities who had toured the winery signed casks. 

Steven Spielberg was here and signed a cask

This cask was signed by Orson Wells.

One of their original cellars with their oldest Sherry

They have a tradition of leaving a glass of wine with this little bitty ladder for the mice. They call this seller full of tasks the happy mice cellar.

In the bodega, now that I know it’s not just a store but in Spain, it’s also a winery, they also have a hotel.

After our tour, we went to the tasting room and we were given three different cherries to try. The only one I really enjoyed was the cream Shari. It was sweet and delicious. The other two were very dry.

Of course, there was the obligatory store next to the tasting room.

The tasting room where we tasted three different sherries, and the plate of tapas to enjoy with the sherry tasting

The obligatory store. I did buy a small bottle of cream sherry. It was 1/3 the price if I waited and bought it back in the states.

Cadiz is very humid in the summer, but the buildings have very high ceilings and they attempt to keep the temperature the same summer and winter. All of the tasks are set on a Sandi soil in in order to keep the humidity high and to cool the storage rooms, they continually wet the soil in the summer months.

We regrouped and took another 20 minute walk before returning to the bus. Our tour guide walked us through most of the squares in this little town where we could admire the old buildings.

Once we were back on the bus, we had about a half hour ride to lunch in the town of San Fernando. There we enjoyed a traditional and delusion lunch with lots of tapas far more than I could eat. After lunch was finished we enjoyed a flamenco show with a singer and a guitar player and one woman who danced for us. I couldn’t imagine how she could do all of that and not fall over from lack of breath..

She even got her castinettes out and played them while she danced for us

After the show, it was back on the bus again and this time back to the town of Cadiz and a bus tour of the city. We didn’t get out of the bus, but we’re just showing the highlights of the town before we were taken back to the ship.

Sights of Cadiz:  

An old Roman wall, they found during construction of a newer development

Cadiz is a seaside town on the Atlantic Ocean. We finally sailed west far enough to find the Atlantic Ocean.

10,000 steps again today.  I was glad we didn’t end with a walking tour of Cadiz.

We left port tonight at 6:30 pm snd will once again sail east through the Straits of Gibraltar before arriving in Malaga tomorrow morning for our last stop on this cruise.