Rioja Ramblings

From Madrid the plan was to head North to the Basque region. Since we’d been city-hopping a bit, we decided to break the trip up with a few days in a small town in the wine region of La Rioja. From there we’d head to our beachside base just outside Bilbao – home of the famous Guggenheim Museum (and the perhaps less-well-known outside Spain, Bilbao Basket).

Road Trip!

Simba the Peugeot is a typical European car – small and compact, easy to get through tiny cobblestone streets and into ridiculously small parking spots. What he is not, is a car made to take four adults, sports equipment and luggage on a two-week holiday. Al didn’t let this get in the way of making it happen.

Michelle to Dene: So what would you like to do while we’re in Madrid?

Dene: Oh, some sightseeing, maybe sit at a sidewalk café and enjoy a pastry while people-watching.

Al: How about we go to the local car parts store and buy some roof racks??

Three hours later… Let’s go!!

…And then foolishly, we decided we’d take them off again until we needed them. Another two hours to get them back on (consisting of 115 minutes of trying to put them on wrong, and 5 minutes of putting them on right).

NOW Let’s Go….

Of Mountains and Grapes

A quick stop to introduce Dene and Kerry to the wonders of Decathalon and on to La Rioja (Ree-oh-ha). We didn’t have grand plans for our visit to this part of the country. We figured some family time playing golf and tennis, lounging around in the backyard, board games at night, maybe a bit of wine tasting if it worked out. Wow, did we under-estimate this region. We could have stayed for a lot longer than the few days we had. It helped that the warm weather arrived and we were basking in sunshine. The region of La Rioja is simply stunning, with the Ebro River winding its way along the wide valley between two mountain ranges. Picturesque villages, rolling fields and vineyards as far as the eye can see. Yep, we’re in Mediterranean Europe. One of the boxes on Michelle’s list for the Spain trip was some walking / hiking in the countryside and mountains. With the Spanish love of walking and hiking there were countless choices from a Via Verde (old railway routes) through the fields of the valley, to taking part of a pilgrims’ way (the Camino Frances comes from France and through the La Rioja region), walking town to town or venturing up into the mountains. We managed to do a bit of it all but only just scratched the surface.

We lured Kerry in with this first stunning (and flat/ short) riverside walk.

Even better, the hike finished at a winery

Our second walk was a little more ambitious 11km loop in the mountains. La Rioja is bounded by the Sierra de Cantabria in the north (Atlantic coastal side) and the Sierra de la Demanda in the south. As you might imagine from the names, the Southern ones are higher. We opted to walk in the Northern range. Dene had it all sorted with a trail marked out on his phone app.

We set off full of energy and were drinking in the scenery and greeting passing fellow-hikers with the local word for hello. Now that we’re in Basque Country, we have a third opportunity to not speak the local language. They were either saying ‘Bai’ or ‘A-bye’ or maybe ‘Oh boy, another tourist’. Anyway, whatever they were saying, it distracted us enough that we missed our trail turnoff. What we hadn’t factored in was that the hillside is scattered with so many trails it’s easy to miss the turns. Not to worry, Dene found us a new trail that would mean no backtracking – we’d simply join our original trail further up. The operative word here being ‘up’ – as in, straight up. The hitherto pleasant walk in the woods became a ‘where are my climbing ropes’ slog up the side of a cliff face, finally emerging back onto the main path. No doubt the site of our wheezing red faces startled the mother and daughter out for their stroll. ‘Where did you come from, and why?? Bai.’ We were eventually rewarded with an incredible view over the mountain range and the entire valley.

Back to flat ground along a Via Verde was a short stroll from our village to the next town for lunch.

While Dene, Kerry and Michelle were out hiking mountains, Al was nursing a sore foot and taking on the important role of finding a winery for post-walk refuelling. We wandered down from the mountain trail to find Al basking in the afternoon sun, in a blissful scene with families frolicking in the park, open fire barbeques and a local patio bar with – apparently – the best tortillas in Spain. (Spanish tortillas are more like what we’d call a potato and cheese quiche/omelette/gratin, served by the slice and very popular as a mid-morning snack). Homemade, fresh from the oven, the warm cheese spilling out over the steaming potatoes… We’re going to have to take Al’s word on how good they were, because by the time the rest of us got there, they were sold out for the day.

The owner was very eager for us to return the next day: ‘Call tomorrow and let me know how many serves you’d like’. Alas, it was not to be. Al continues to remind us of how good it was and how he won’t bother having any more tortillas as they simply won’t measure up….

In between enjoying the tortilla and researching wineries, Al also went and saw another aqueduct (continuing his mission to visit every aqueduct in Europe before he dies) as well as a curious necropolis apparently dating from the 10th century, at the edge of a farmer’s field. Body-shaped holes cut out from the rock to store… bodies? For burial? Burning? Google has not yielded any further wisdom.

The reward for our labours of the day was a visit to the nearby López de Haro winery. Despite not having pre-booked, the lovely bilbaína (Bilbao native) host was able to accommodate us on the tour. She kept us entertained over the entire tour, seamlessly switching between English for us and Spanish for the others. (She still had at least two other languages in her toolbelt, of course – French and Basque. It wouldn’t surprise us if she had a few others as well). She clearly revelled in her job, and showed remarkable restraint in limiting the tour to just two (!!) hours.

Easter Parades (Santa Semana)

Easter week was coming to a climax so no surprise we stumbled on yet another Easter procession. This one complete with several people dragging 6ft wooden crosses up the road.

And, well… these guys…

Lost in Translation

Apparently “12:30” and “2:30” are easily confused when you speak Spanish at the level of an infant. And so we missed our golf tee-time by… oh, two hours. Luckily they were able to find another slot for us…

In between all that we did manage to fit in a few of the things we’d originally planned, including a(nother) round of golf, some Spanish Parcheesi (with a cool new rule to move ahead 20 places when you ‘capture’ another player, and several spirited conversations on interpretations of the blockade rule in different hemispheres), and of course wine ‘tasting’ whenever and wherever possible.

Next, we leave the lovely Rioja region and head North, to Bilbao and the Atlantic Coast.