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| Down Logroño main St in old town |
The rain has pattered heavily down on
Madrid’s streets over the last few days, cleaning the road and feeding the
flowers. Our exasperated grey skyline has been continuously wallowing and weeping
and the dark clouds imitate a stormy ocean. As typical with spring it’s warm
one minute and freezing the next!
With our fingers and toes crossed that the
rain would pass and the sky gods would will the clouds away, we ventured to La
Rioja, province and autonomous region in the north of Spain. This was a special
occasion, celebrating our now third wedding anniversary with friends! Our road trip (by bus)
from Madrid was 4 hours and we arrived late Friday evening into the heart of the
wine capital, Logroño. From the bus we walked briskly (in a light drizzle) towards
our pension, checked in and then immediately went out exploring!
The old city of Logroño is really stunning,
old and medieval. It’s a relatively small community in the north of La Rioja
surrounded by vineyards. The inner city called ‘the old town’ is relatively
small.
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| Cycling to the Vine yards |
The following morning was very chilly but
the rain was holding off. From the Logroño tourist center, we borrowed their free-to-use
bicycles and began to make our way about 4km down the road to the first
vineyard. On the way there, the clouds broke and we rode our bikes in icy rain all
the way to our destination according to Google Maps. As it turns out, we ended
up a stones throw away behind the now
inaccessible vineyard.
After attempting to cross a ditch, backtracking and
getting stuck in thick, wet vineyard mud, we spotted a road on the other side
of a locked gate. By the time we had squeezed our bikes through a fence and
across the vineyards the mud was half way up our legs and the Spanish security
guard that came after us didn’t sound too happy. Our conversation went a bit
like: him in Spanish: “How did you get through the fence?” us in English and
nodding our heads up and down: “Yes, it was a problem”.
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| Ontañon wines... yum |
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| Exploring the cellar |
We assume that perhaps people don’t cycle much to the vineyards? Never the less, they let us in as there was wine to be drunk!
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| Wine tasting at Ontañon |
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| Finished glasses |
Next stop we joined a Spanish group as they
toured the cellars at Ontañon. We didn’t understand much but the wine was tasty
and come with free bruschetta’s and hard cheese. Yummy! From there, the
bicycles started getting a bit wobbly so we made our way back to the pension
with some bottles of supermarket Rioja wine!
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| Art on the Spanish tour |
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| Off we go! |
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| Central Catherdal |
The day was a very educational
experience for our little touring group! We learnt that the wine from Rioja and Spain comes in different grades and that is more important than the grape variety.
This made sense for when you go to a bar the conversation with the waiter goes
a bit like this (translated) ‘wine or beer’ “wine” ‘red or white’ “red” ‘young
or old’ (?).
So wine is either joven (young) or crianza (older) but you can
also get a higher more premium grade which are reserva or gran reserva and all these labels depend on the amount of
time the wine was oaked.
After the wine disappeared and a patch of passing rain cleared, we ventured to Calle Laurel and its surrounding block.
This part of the old town was once a street of Bodegas (wine shops) where merchants came into the city to sell the wine grown from the local region.
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| Hopping down Calle Laurel |
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| Rain on the terraces |
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| Main Plaza, Logroño |
That
evening the lighting was spectacular and the old city had a beautiful romantic feel
with wet cobblestones and lighting by dimmed street lamp.
The next morning, after a late start, late
breakfast of coffee and a bacon and egg bocodilla and then a late check out, we
returned our bikes and followed a part of the Camino de Santigo which ran
through the North of the City towards our first winery of the day.
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| Parroquia de Santiago Real |
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| San Nicolas fountain |
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| A tiny part of the Camino de Santiago |
The Camino
de Santigo is an 800-kilometer pilgrim trail that starts in Southern France and
ends in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, first used by pilgrims in the middle
ages.
Today walked by tens of thousands of Christian pilgrims annually. The
path conveniently led us over the Río Ebro river and towards the Franco Españolas
winery. Here we sampled some wines before returning to Calle Laurel for several
hours, just to have a few more nibbles and drinks!
A few to many wines/beers and tapas later we picked up some dinner and boarded
our bus from the trip home! A truly fantastic weekend!
Tot siens,
John and Kara
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| Tapa's? Yes please! |
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