Sandeman Park - Jerez de la Frontera - Andalusia

© Sjaak Langenberg, 2014.

While Seville flaunts its parks like a peacock in its finest feathers, Jerez de la Frontera's Parque Sandeman easily displaces memories of the lush tranquility of the bustling southern Spanish capital we visited previously.

Parque Sandeman is a pretty silly little park that will probably still look like it was built from scratch ten years from now. It's bare, the benches aren't comfortable, there's nowhere to sit sheltered from the wind when the wind blows, and the views of the Jerez neighborhood are stunning. A man is walking his dog. Two boys throw oranges that have fallen from trees at a couple on a bench to end the romance.

The park is opposite the entrance to the Sandeman Sherry Cellar which stores 26 million liters of sherry . The Scotsman George Sandeman imported sherry from Jerez to London in the late 18th century. In October 1928 , the image of “Zorro” (Spanish hat, Portuguese cape) was printed on the label of a sherry bottle for the first time, in an impossible pose suggesting a glass of sherry being taken through the right ear with hunched shoulders. There is now also a real Zorrolaan just a few blocks away.

The wineries of Jerez largely determine the cityscape, because the sherry stock is kept in the center. The sherry gives off a sickeningly sweet smell that reaches far beyond the warehouses. As if the heat wasn't intoxicating enough.

If you go to the local tourist office , a helpful woman will calculate how much you can see in Jerez de la Frontera in a day . Arrival and departure times at the various locations are strictly prescribed. You pee your pants. Hopefully he won't look away if you stop by the tourist office at the wrong time.

The VVV strongly advises against visiting Parque Sandeman. This works like a red rag for a Taurus, because total unattractiveness is charming. In the 1970s, advertisements urged silent drinkers to share their secret with Sandeman. There's nothing mysterious about this park, but Granada's Generalife pales in comparison to a place where pubic bushes – a technical term for public vegetation covering unsightly parts of buildings – stand freely in space like sculptures. Irresistible, even to the absentee.

Willem Vandenameele