That’ll explain the prices

When I booked this trip I had originally intended on staying in Cadiz rather than Jerez. Partly because I hadn’t looked at how frequent the buses from the airport were (that partly put me off, but I could have changed onto a train in Jerez) and partly because I thought there would probably be plenty of accommodation in Cadiz.

When it came to booking a hotel room I found it was incredibly expensive, heading close to £100 per night for even a one star hotel.

By the time I finally found a hotel with reasonable rates it was the Ibis out the back of Jerez, which appeared to make some sense, as that was the airport I was flying to.

I have, though, now found out the reason for the lack of accommodation.

It’s not that Cadiz is short on hotels; it’s just that it is very short on rooms if you try and book into hotels during the annual Carnival.

If I’d actually looked at a calendar before booking the trip I might have realised (though to be fair, it would normally be in February, it’s only because Easter is so late this year that Carnival is taking place in March)

I’ve obviously started to get a little slapdash with my planning recently, in the past I would have spent weeks planning looking up key dates and comparing lots of days before booking, now I just pick a week and get booked up.

Perhaps it’s time I went back to a bit better planning.

The rain in Spain falls mostly on Jerez de la Frontera

OK, once was odd, but twice is really rather strange.

Yesterday the weather in Jerez was pretty poor, in fact it was dire, with the rain ranging from heavy mist through drizzle to downpour every 20 minutes or so. By the time you went anywhere you were soaked, and the sandy soil in the Alcazar was closer to quicksand than paving material quality.

However, by the time I got to Cadiz in the early afternoon it looked as though it had never rained, the skies were clear blue and the weather was warm.

Perhaps is hadn’t rained out here?

Well today the same thing happened again, weather in Jerez very wet, weather 20 miles away in Cadiz gloriously sunny.

Make is slick, make it profitable

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve experienced two very different approaches to what is effectively the same thing

A sales pitch from a booze company.

In Porto the Port wine lodges run regular tours, In Jerez the Sherry Bodegas do exactly the same thing.

In Porto the tours are a 30 minute wander through the cellars with a brief explanation on the making of port and the difference between a Ruby, White, Tawny, Vintage and LBV, followed by a couple of samples

In Jerez the tours are about 90 minutes long, include wandering around lots of storage areas, a film presentation and then a couple of samples.

In Porto the tours are free, in Jerez the basic tour is almost €10, and if you add in extra Sherry sampling and Tapas at the end it goes up to almost €20.

The numbers on the tours were pretty similar, which would suggest that either the Bodegas owners of Jerez are running a very profitable monopoly, or the Port wine lodge owners of Porto are seriously missing out on a trick.

Of course, the major difference is the Porto tours are definitely a very quick tour round as the visitors are basically after the booze. In Jerez the tour is very much part of the attraction.

Which proves a point, if you make it that little bit slicker, you can charge through the nose for it.