“Spanish towns are so random…” Adventures in International Road Trips Part One

Jolene and I picked up our car at 10h00 from terminal 4 with confidence. We got into the car and I let Jolene take the wheel first since when we practiced last Sunday with Alby she seemed to be doing a better job with the whole not stalling thing. She started the car with ease and passed two tolls without issue. Then we hit the highway.

TRAFFIC!!

Stop and go holiday traffic from the puente over the Easter holiday. This was by and large our very worst nightmare. One that we tried to avoid by getting the car outside of the city where there are only highways. Stopping and starting are the absolute, most challenging part of driving a manual car. When we entered traffic all I could think of was Sunday ski traffic coming back on I-70 where a 1.5 hour drive can stretch into 4 hours and hours can pass by from Silverthorne to the tunnel. All uphill, all stop and go.

Jolene kept a calm attitude (even though later she told me she was anything but) and only stalled twice in the traffic (trust me it was better than I thought it might be). I was thoroughly impressed. The rest of the drive was mostly without incident. We made it to Logroño with just the occasional hassle of trying to shift gears, break, drive, watch pedestrians, start, stop, not stall, you know, normal driving things.

We made it!

Entering La Rioja

In Logroño we decided not to drive anywhere and found an on the street place to park that we could pull into and not parallel park, because let’s be honest that was definitely not happening and beyond our skill set. We also didn’t want to enter a car garage where there was a steep incline by the ticket reader that we would have to start on a huge incline. We left the car in the spot, mostly parked ok and walked or took taxis the rest of the time even though it was more costly and took more time.

Jolene and I had heard mixed reviews of Logroño and we were not sure what we should expect. Luckily, we loved it! We were concerned when everything closed at 15h00 during siesta and slowed to a dead halt. We went to a winery a little outside of the city, a compulsory tour, and came back at 18h30 to a town with absolutely nothing open in the center except for one café we found. I’m talking ghost town. If I had seen a tumbleweed blow by it would not have surprised me, in fact there was trash blowing around in a very similar fashion. We were told that a bar was re-opening at 8, so we decided to try the center again around then.

Street shot of Logroño

When we came back around 8 the town had lit up again. Success. Bars all had outside barrels for tables to stand and drink at, dance parties broke out to live music, beer and wine was 1 – 1.50 euro, tapas were about 2 euros. All the bars had different tapas, that were listed outside and different tinto from the region. I found that I like crianza better than joven tinto. The weird thing about bars here was that you ordered your food and drink and then you didn’t pay until the end. You could walk outside to the tables and it was crowded. It would have been so easy to not pay for anything the whole night, but we would have felt too bad. We only didn’t pay, called sinpa in Madrid, at one place because it would have been a huge hassle to get their attention in the extremely busy bar. We ate and drank so well, all for maybe 20 euros. It was incredible! One of my favorite nights in Spain.

Random dance party and live music!

Mmmm mushroom tapas and wine

we won't discuss that Jolene was drinking beer!

Part 2 to come tomorrow! This epic trip deserved 2 posts!

By the way I made it to London fine and my room seems to be ok! More on this later this week!