Alcázar de Jerez de la Frontera — Attraction in Jerez

I only intended to spend 30 minutes here but ended up staying for almost 2 hours. What a gem of a place this is to visit. It may lack some of the scale or grandeur of its cousins in Sevilla and Granada but it has many positives that make it worth your while. Firstly there's the price - at only 5 euros this is great value for money. You can download a tour guide via a QR code but if you're unable to do this don't worry - there are plenty of information boards throughout, in both Spanish and English. Due to covid they don't take cash. The other great positive is that almost everything is accessible. Indoors you'll find temples, baths, museums displaying artefacts and tools (some of them enormous), grand rooms displaying billboards from yesteryear and even a pharmacy with hundreds of interesting items on display. Outdoors you'll find landscaped gardens, courtyards, archaeological sites, water wheels and towers and fortress walls you can climb to access great views across the city and the nearby cathedral. Well worth an hour...

The Alcazar of Jerez is well worth a visit. It is not to be compared with the Alcazar of Sevilla or the Alhambra in Granada, but the smaller scale, well maintained fortification, palace and mosque are beautiful in their simplicity. You will get a very nice view of Jerez and its surrounding countryside too, especially from the octagonal tower. The palace has a relatively young and very high quality camera obscura, which I think are clever, fun and wonderful instruments. The apothecary inside the palace takes you right back to the past, it is well kept and decorated. Personally I think the old mosque is a very spiritual place. It is old, very serene and looks amazing from the outside too.

One hour is enough to do a quick tour, but 2 hours allows for a quiet moment in the mosque, a moment of quiet in the gardens and a visit to the camera...

Small and compact Muslim fortress and palace. Most Arab cities in the south of Spain have these of varying sizes, from the giant palace complex Grenada- AlHambra to a smaller one in Malaga. This one is well preserved, rebuilt in parts, and very well interpreted. From the top of the big tower you can see the whole site and see what it all does. Top of the tower also gives excellent views over rhe city and surrounding area. 5 euro to get in, child friendly and with some steps and ramps but easy enough to get around. Plan on an hour, maybe 2 if you want to see the C17 Palace in the middle. The mosque is well worth seeing and one of the very few remaining in any Alcazar, as the Christian reconquest destroyed...