Last weekend Raelynne and I were fortunate to take a weekend trip to Logroño, the capital city of the province La Rioja, which is famous for its WINE! Yup, I know what you're thinking and yes, that's exactly what we did. Between the two of us we brought home 11 bottles of wine...and that doesn't include any of the wine we drank while we were there. Such a fantastic place. We had a great time. By far one of the best trips I've taken. Period.
First night in Logroño at "our bar" View of the church at night in the Casco Viejo
We took the bus to Logroño which is about 4 hours north of Madrid. That proved to be an adventure in and of itself...mainly because I got completely confused about where the bus station was. I knew it was at a metro stop called Avenida de America and yet for some reason I went o Plaza de Castilla. Those two sound nothing alike but I always confuse them. It makes no sense. I'm not sure why I have this issue. Anyway, it meant running through the station at 4:25 to make it onto our 4:30 bus. Thank god a lot of people were going to Logroño on that bus because the line gave us a few extra minutes. I think I spent the first 3 hours of the bus ride thanking the powers that be for letting make the bus. The last hour was spent wishing I could get out. The twist and turns as we drove through mountains was doing nothing for nerves...or my bladder.
We ended up finding our pensión (like a small hotel) easily enough from the bus station and luckily it was on the main drag through the old part of town, Calle Portales. It was stunning. That was a nice surprise for both of us.
Our first full day in Logroño was spent hunting down all the wineries. Unfortunately there's only two winery within walking distance and one of them was closed. So we made the best of Franco Españolas, the most well-known of the area. Probably because it's so close. On our tour we made a friend with an old man named Luis. He was very chatty and told us the same stories over and over again. I think Raelynne got a picture.
Look at all those bottles of wine! ...and barrels! 15,000 of them
What the vineyards must look like
The tour of the winery was very nice and they gave us a tasting at the end. I walked out with one bottle of wine...I wanted to pace myself. The cool this is, the bottle came in a wooden box. I have no idea how good the wine is, but now at least I have a cool box! Afterwards we got lunch. Normally a lunch menú comes with a drink, which can be a glass of wine. However, in Logroño, they just give you the whole bottle. Raelynne and I made the mistake of drinking it all. We then stumbled back to our pensión and I passed out. I have never been so drunk off wine in the afternoon! My head felt like a pile of bricks. It's exactly what we came here for. haha!
Demonstration (manifestación) along Calle Portales, view from our balcony
I actually woke up to shouting and whistling in the streets. There was a demonstration that evening to protest the cuts and financial troubles of Spain. There wasn't much to do in the evening other than drink, but we needed a break from that so we joined in the demonstration. It was really cool because I think everyone in the city was there. And it gave us a nice tour of the town :) Did I mention it was snowing?? I think I forgot! But yeah, it snowed the entire time we were there. Beautiful snow. It made the place that more enchanting.
View down Calle Portales
Our last day was much more chill. We slept in. Got breakfast. Shopped. Bought more wine. Then went to lunch. This time though, we didn't finish the entire bottle but we got close. In an effort to not pass out and sleep the afternoon away we sat ourselves in a cafe and I had a few cups of coffee. That helped a bunch. In the evening we did wine and tapas. Oh, fun fact: our first night out we bar hopped a bit and found out that a glass of wine in Logroño costs about .70euros...that's not even a dollar! Ridiculous! Needless to say, we ate and drank like queens.
Soaking up the snow!
It was really hard to leave Logroño. We had such a nice time. And I think Logroño had a hard time letting us go too...because the next day in Madrid it snowed. :-)
~Caralyn
