Let me take you to LOGRONO, SPAIN - Capital city of Wine

Hey from a wonderful Tapas and Wine place...

Today i am taking you to a nice and small city, Logrono...
There are lots of information about everywhere on the internet. So i will try to tell you about what i did. Maybe i am not a good story teller but i will try to make it as interesting as possible.

Logrono is the capital city of La Rioja region in Spain. It is a bit north side of Spain and maybe a little colder then rest of the Spain. Almost everybody knows that Spanish wines are world famous and the very best are from La Rioja. If you see a wine from La Rioja and if you like the grape variety, just get it. You can have a very good tasted wine for 5-10 euros. Believe me, you won’t regret.
This is the last bottle from my visit to Logrono. I bought it for 10 dollars and it is really great.

For me, easiest way to Logrono is flying to Bilbao and then driving to Logrono like 1,5 hour. Logrono has its own airport but just can be flied from Madrid. If you go to Madrid and if you don’t want to make another flight, you can drive to Logrono from Madrid. It is about 300 km. and takes about 3-4 hours.
On out last visit, we landed Madrid at about 5 pm with my 3 friends. We rented a car because it was cheaper then taking another flight. We decided to walk around a bit and had dinner in an Argentinian restaurant. Great meat! I may write about it later but not now. We left Madrid at about 11 pm. I opened the navigator of the car. After about an hour and a half, it took us to a road out of the highway. I didn’t mind so much. It was about midnight i guess. It got colder and colder. Then suddenly we noticed that we were in a very narrow road in a valley, it was so dark and all we could understand was, all around was high mountains and cliffs. No light, nothing. Maybe once in 10 km. , we were passing by a village with 5-10 old houses but there was no light, no people, nothing. A bit scary. 3 sleeping ladies and me driving. Maybe the villages were empty, i didn’t know. If some trouble would have happened, i am sure nobody could help us till morning. Maybe not in the morning, we were surrounded by mountains. Where were we? I woke my friends up. Metallica playing on the radio.

The only vehicle we saw in about 1,5 hour drive was a bus. So, if it is after sunset, you’d better not use that road. Follow the highway. We reached Logrono at about 2 o’clock and went straight to our Hotel at the entrance of Calle Portales and asked for our reserved rooms.
Guess what? Our agency didn’t confirm our rooms and the hotel clerk told me that there is only 1 available room but she was waiting for the customer to arrive. We were very angry. I asked her to advice an alternative hotel to us. Thank god, she was very nice and helped us. She forwarded us to hotel just about 300 mt. from there, talked to the lady there and sent us.
We arrived to the new hotel easily in 5 mins and entered inside. There was a couple ( man about 60s, lady about 50s) just in front of the hotel, leaving. We told the receptionist lady that we are coming from the other hotel. She said a few things in Spanish that we all understood nothing but thank God finished with the words “ pasaportes ” . She seemed a bit weird and spoke different. Appareantly, she wasn’t able to understand even a word in English. It was about 15 hours since we left Istanbul. We were also a bit nervous but nervousness that leads us to laugh on everything.
She prepared our room cards looking at our passports and visas. Turkish people need Schengen Visa to enter European Union countries. We all had it. Then she gave each of us a white card to be signed. Name, surname, passport number, room number already written by her and we signed. Everybody’s information was OK on their cards but mine was a bit weird. )))
The lady didn’t know English and i think German as well. My name on the card was Schengen, surname Staten. ))) I got the visa from Germany Embassy before my previous trip and was still using it. She thought Schengen is my name, Staten was my surname.. ) We started laughing like crazy. We couldn’t stop ourselves. Then she started shouting loud in Spanish and it was obvious that she understood that we were laughing on her and she was very angry. From her body language, i understood that we were 1 second away from being kicked out. I told my friends to stop until we got in the elevator. We had to and we stopped. 

We are out the other day. As i said, Logrono is a very nice and small city. Calle Portales is the main street in old town.

The gothic church Concatedral de Sta Maria de La Redonda with its twin towers is at the heart of the street.

Want some tapas, wine, beer and some fun in the evening? Take the first right from the beginning of the Calle Portales. You will find tens of Tapas Bars and restaurants between Calle San Agustin and De Laurel. This is the best tapas i have ever eaten. Mushroom grilled with some kind of garlic sauce and shrimps sticked to it with a toothpick. No need to tell the place, you will see the mushroom sign on the street.
Bon appetit!

Not full? Of course, if you don’t eat 4 plates of mushrooms like i do. :D You will find many kind of delicious food and very good wines around. But my other favourite is Patatas Bravas . Delicious.

This is also a good selection. Most of the wines are great as i mentioned.

You know i told you to take the highway from Madrid to Logrono if the sun went down. But, i strongly recommend you that use the mountain road if it is day and the weather is OK.

When we turn back, we took the mountain road again. We stopped at Pradillo, a small village on the mountain road for a minute and stayed about 1,5 hour. Really nice village .

![pradillo1.jpg]
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There was a small restaurant next to the road. We had a very nice lunch and drank very good wine again. ( not me the driver )

We arrived Madrid just before sunset. When we were in queue for passport control, we were still laughing about my Schengen Staten.

See you on the next stop!