Zafra turned out to be pretty sleepy town. The good news is we saved the best for last (the fortress-palace with eight towers that was our parador for the night). The really good news is that we only spent an afternoon in Zafra.
Oh, the town had a certain sleepy charm to it. But not a lot of charm. It certainly was different than Seville. Or Malaga. Or Cordoba. Or Granada. Or Cadiz. Or, well you get the gist.
After finding parking in the little plaza outside of our parador, we walked back through one of the city arches to have lunch at the little restaurant that catered to locals. Of course it focuses on locals, as the city does not do much of a tourist trade.
Carol ordered a full ration and I ordered two tapas. The waitress brought my two dishes. Then another waiter, after a while, brought a third tapas. I said, "I didn't order it." There was quite the mix-up, so he sent the original waitress over. Eventually she told us the first thing, which was basically, well, I'm not really sure what it was. But I ate most of it because I thought I ordered it.
Apparently, however, if you order a drink, you get a free aperitif (essentially a tapas of the day not on the menu). As I told her later, I was glad she made me eat the third tapa, because it was the best of the three (no, I don't remember what it was, just that it was tasty).
We then walked around Zafra, which doesn't take long. Because it was siesta time, nothing was open except a bar in one of the two plazas in the old town. Billed by the tourism website, the Parroquia de la Candelaria, as "a majestic Gothic church from the 16th century" was closed until 5pm, and would be open for an hour. We did go back to it when it was open, but it wasn't much.
We also went to the Museo de Santa Clara de Zafra, but it never reopened during the early evening hours posted. We waited for a little bit along with three other tourists, before we gave up.
Next on our relatively pointless journey were the Arco de Jerez and the Arco del Cubo. The two arches were the kind you look at and move on from. The Pilar de San Benito fountain wasn't running. I ended up squinting at it for a few moments, and I could see how that, on a blue sky day with water running the fountain could be charming. But it was a gray sky day with no water running, so it really wasn't charming at all.
Here's helpful tourism advice -- don't go to the Plaza Chica or the Plaza Grande during siesta time, as absolutely nothing is going on.
Sorry, I had to sound so cynical, but there you go.
Even sleepy Zafra deserves some photos on the blog. . .just not lot of photos. I actually had more to put up, but somehow I must have deleted a chunk of them.
Editor: You keep using that word, "sleepy" to describe Zafra. I do not think it means what you think it means. Writer: Oh it does, and you are not Inigo Montoya.
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