Camino a Santiago: Rest day in Logroño

My second rest day in a week. I’m glad I took it, but I’m not sure I’d repeat it.

When originally planning out my rest days along the Camino, the idea, was not just to rest, per se, but also to be able to explore in some of the bigger towns along the Way. That is why I stopped in Pamplona only three days in. But while I loved Pamplona, Logroño left me underwhelmed. I also think it had to do more with my expectations than anything else.

The entry into the city, crossing over the bridge, is to be fair, lovely. And the street art here is fantastic. But for me, the main reason to spend a full day here was the food and the wine. You see, I’m a foodie, and Logroño is the capital of the Autonomous Community of La Rioja, which of course is synonymous with Spanish Wine. I had also heard fantastic things about the food, the Pintxos especially.

To that end, and knowing I did not want to do a vineyard tour per se, which would have me running around the countryside all day, I chose a morning visit at Bodegas Franco-Españolas, one of La Rioja’s oldest wine warehouses.

The tour was fantastic. It’s the most informative winery visit I’ve ever been on. I feel like I learned so much, not only about wine-making in the region, but its history as well. It’s very interesting and involves a grape killing bacteria that over 100 years ago was making its way across Europe, but stopped, at least for a time at the Pyrenees, dividing France from Spain. With its supply of wine at risk (the horror!!) the French, rushed to partner with a group of winemakers in Logroño, which, is not just in the heart of La Rioja, but also along the train tracks that lead to France. The rest is history. The cellars, where the wine was aged, were constructed strategically so that no sooner was the wine ready, it was loaded onto a train and shipped to France. Great story. Sadly, I can’t say their wine was that good. Sorry. Though I should start by saying that Rioja is not necessarily my cup of tea. And though I had some very good Riojas during my time in Spain, Franco-Española wines didn’t rate anywhere in the top ten.

Moving on from the winery tour, it was time for lunch. I’d heard fantastic things about the food here. I have to say while the previous day I had a lot of fun on our pintxos crawl, and the food was good, I wasn’t blown away by it. Frankly, I think the pinxtos in Pamplona are much better. Wanting to try a proper restaurant, I consulted the Michelin guide and settled on Txebiko Cachetero. I’m going to start by saying that the food was very good. Though I likely made a mistake in ordering, by going for a main dish which, I should have known would not be for me. Carrilladas de cerdo are essentially a pork cheek stew and one of the specialities of the region. Meh. The meat was very flavorful and perfectly cooked. It was just not my thing at all. My appetizer, dessert—an inventive roquefort ice-cream—and wine were all excellent. The service however was so bad it colored my entire experience and I would not go back. At that price point service needs to be a priority as well.

Winery tour and lunch done, it was time to explore Logroño. Or so I thought. The Old Town can be visited in under an hour. The problem is every single one of the churches in town was closed. Every last one. This is a bit of a theme in Spain with churches having very limited opening hours, which is fine, except here, they all, except one remained closed even when they were supposed to be open. After visiting the one—which did include a Michelangelo—and being quite hot I gave up randomly walking around and went back to my hotel for an early evening. A 30K day into Najera awaits.