You might remember in my last post that I mentioned whisking myself away on vacation. If you had a keen eye, you might have noticed something. Yup, the train ticket was valid for the day that I actually bought it, which was Monday. Instead of my travel day, which was Wednesday. Cue the sad trombone: wah wahhh. Thankfully that was the only hiccup along the way. From there it was smooth sailing.
I started in Logroño in the La Rioja region of Spain. In other words, hello wine. I didn’t get there until late on Wednesday so I headed straight for the hotel so that I could wake up early the next day. Starting the day early in Spain is both wonderful and horrible. It’s wonderful because no one is awake so you can get the streets and the sights to yourself. It’s terrible because no one is awake so nothing is open. You can find breakfast and coffee if you look hard enough but that’s about it. Stores don’t open until 10 or 11, then they close around 2 and sometimes don’t open again until 5. How they get anything done is beyond me.
All told, I had just under two days in the city. Most of the time was spent exploring; however, I did manage to squeeze in a visit to a winery, but for now it’s all about the exploration! Anyway, I started each morning with a coffee and a napolitano or tostado and then went for a walk around the city. Notice how empty these pictures I are? I didn’t even have to try all that hard to get photos without people in them. Any people that I did stumble across during my morning strolls were very clearly not Spanish, or at least, were not local Spaniards. The Camino de Santiago passes through Logroño so there were a lot of people trekking around. I followed the seashell markers through the old town so that counts for something, right?
Lunchtime finally rolled around and it was time to do the thing that you’re supposed to do in Logroño. Pintxos! (Or pinchos!) There are loads of bars scattered around the town but there are three main streets: Calle del Laurel, Calle de San Augustín and Calle Alborniz plus an alley or two connecting them all together. Between all these streets there are probably about 50 restaurant/bars, each specializing in a certain pincho. The idea is to go from bar to bar sampling their specialities. So that is exactly what I did for the two-ish days that I spent there.
Yes, I was that person. Anyway, that about covers wandering and eating my way through Logroño. Check in with me next time when I talk about my visit to the winery! Make sure to stock up on your wine now!