← Sherry Maratón·Day trip

El Puerto de Santa María: Bodegas and Fried Fish

The Sherry Triangle's port town on the Guadalete, 15 minutes from Jerez by train, with bodegas, a riverside castle and fried fish eaten from paper on the Ribera del Marisco.

DurationDay trip
TransitCercanías C1 train from Jerez, about 15 minutes
DepartsJerez de la Frontera station

After the Sherry Maratón: El Puerto de Santa María

The Route: Jerez → El Puerto de Santa María → Jerez Logistics: Cercanías C1 local train, about 15 minutes each way. A flat, short half-day by the river. Marathon Month: April Duration: Day trip

Jerez station ──(about 15 mins Cercanías C1)──> El Puerto de Santa María ──(about 15 mins)──> Jerez

The Sherry Maratón loops through the vineyards north of Jerez and comes home past the city's bodegas. El Puerto de Santa María, the third town of the Sherry Triangle, is where much of that wine used to leave for the rest of the world, at the mouth of the Guadalete on the Bay of Cádiz. It is flat, close and built for a lazy day.

April in El Puerto is warm and fresh, before the summer crowds arrive for the beaches. In most years the afternoons are in the low twenties and the terraces along the river are full on sunny days.

The Cercanías C1 line runs from Jerez to El Puerto in about 15 minutes, on its way to Cádiz. Trains run roughly every half hour to hour through the day; buy the ticket at the station machine. El Puerto's station is a 10 to 15 minute walk from the river.

The river and the castle

The Castillo de San Marcos, a fortified church built in the thirteenth century on the site of a mosque, stands a few streets back from the river. It belongs to the Caballero bodega family and is visited on guided tours at set times, which often end with a tasting; book ahead. From the castle, the streets down to the Guadalete are level, and the riverside promenade, the Ribera del Río, is a flat, paved walk along the water.

El Puerto's bodegas include Osborne, whose black bull silhouette became a Spanish road-sign icon, and several smaller houses. Most run tours by appointment; check days in advance, as some close on Sunday or Monday.

The Ribera del Marisco

The Ribera del Marisco, the street of seafood along the river, is the reason many people come. The freidurías fry fish and prawns to order and sell them by weight in paper cones; Romerijo is the best known, with a cooked-seafood shop on one side of the street and a fried-fish shop on the other. Take the cone to a table on the pavement, add a cold manzanilla or fino, and eat in the sun.

Trains back to Jerez run until late evening.