La Rioja

During the puente, Matt and I had 5 days to travel, so we decided to rent a car and drive up to La Rioja, the autonomous community known for its wine. With his ability to drive stick and my ability to read Spanish, we figured we would be fine on a European road trip. We started off a little rough, what with Matt having trouble figuring out how to put the car in reverse then with the nightmare that was driving around on Madrid streets. However, once out of the city, we did pretty well. Throughout the trip, we got lost on rural La Rioja roads from time to time, but we decided that that was "part of the adventure."

Our first night we spent in Arnedillo, a tiny mountain town in a region not known for wine but for dinosaur fossils, thermal baths, and hiking trails. It was SO gorgeous, and we spent our short time there hiking through the olive groves and checking out the views. We also had a yummy dinner in a restaurant built inside caves where we ate amazing artichokes and quail. Add another food to the list of things Christina now eats! Also, how amazing is it that in this country you can buy a 5 euro bottle of table wine, and it's just as tasty as a more expensive California bottle?After one night in Arnedillo, we moved on to the wine region part of the trip, spending the rest of our nights in the even smaller village of Tricio. Tricio's so tiny, it had no restaurants or markets. There was literally no choice but to leave town if we wanted to eat anything other than breakfast as our casa rural (bed and breakfast). Highlights of this portion of the trip:
• The food! Clearly. More foods I tried and liked: pimiento del piquillo, suckling pig (with foot still attached!), garlicky mushroom tapa.
• The wine! No duh. We didn't meet a wine we didn't like.
• Dinastía Vivanco: a ridiculous wine museum with lots of over-the-top touches. One of my favorite parts was the corkscrew collection, including a section full of phallic corkscrews.
• Monasterio de Valvanera: Matt found a random monastery on a map and decided we should find it. It was so worth it! This active monastery is almost an hour's drive up into the mountains. With the rugged hills, the changing colors of the trees, and the far-off snow-capped mountains, the views were SPECTACULAR. Oh man, I loved it.• Matt and I were walking to our car in Tricio one morning and exchanged a brief peck, seriously nothing inappropriate. But this old lady had been watching us and she audibly harrumphed! I've never been harrumphed before!

There is so much more I could say about La Rioja, but this post is getting long. Basically, it was wonderful exploring brand new countryside and getting a taste of Spanish village life. We finished the trip by stopping in Burgos, in Castilla y Leon, to check out its Gothic cathedral. All-in-all it was a great trip! (You can check out more photos on Facebook, too.)