Over the past few weeks, we’ve been blabbing on and on, on Instagram, Facebook about how excited we are to be partnering with Campo Viejo (the folks behind arguably the most popular Rioja in Spain) as champions of “Summer Of Colour” (ergo the hashtag #SummerOfColour).
We’d been on a few experiences in London to do with this but the main part of all of this was a trip to Spain to fully experience what Summer of Colour feels like in the home of Rioja (wine) itself – La Rioja!
And so, off we went to Spain, leaving a cold and grey day in London and arriving into an equally grey day in Spanish Basque Country! Ha!
Luckily, we would be saving the Basque Country for later in the trip and so off we went to Logrono where the sun was truly shining!
We checked into our hotel (where we found a couple of bottles of Rioja with our names on it 😉 ), changed into more weather-appropriate clothes and quickly headed out to town to grab a bite to eat.
Lunch was a veritable feast of all things Spanish – all brilliantly accompanied by several glasses of rioja.
Watered, wined and fed –we headed off in search of the sights of Logrono.
As it turns out, Logrono is one of the more compact cities in Spain and can be explored within a few hours on foot.
Also, people here seem to take siesta time very seriously as the streets were almost deserted while we explore the city – so much so that I wondered if this was like all the time!
We ducked in and out of churches, through windy streets and into art galleries…
…before popping into the local heladería (ice cream shop) for something to cool off in the Spanish heat. The locals by this point were starting to come out – a sign that siesta time was definitely over and everyone was ready for the evening ahead.
We popped back to the hotel to just chill for a bit (and perform a disappearing act on one of our bottle of rioja) before heading out into the town that evening for a slice of what Logrono had to offer at night.
When we headed out that evening, you’d be forgiven for thinking you’d showed up at a different place to where we were that afternoon. Families and friends were out in their hundreds and the streets were totally transformed (you can see what I mean in our video here).
Spanish meals are made for sharing and so we did just that!
We started off with a famous salad in the area – a tuna salad (which was actually so good I had to tear myself away from it otherwise no one else would have had any of it)…
…before moving on to another famous dish in the area (in a different bar), grilled garlic mushrooms (this one was a hard pass from me.
It smelled absolutely delicious and I did go for the garlic prawn in the middle but I just struggle with mushrooms, the texture and taste is just so…”Bleurgh!”
Everyone else in our party who regularly ate mushrooms constantly assured me of what I was missing but it was still very much a hard pass from me.
With that done, we carried on in search of more Spanish food, stopping at another restaurant for grilled peppers (didn’t know this was a thing – absolutely loved it), suckling pig, croquettes and some of that famous Iberian ham! *licks lips*
A constant theme through all of this, of course, was our Campo Viejo wine, which we had at every bar and restaurant! Campo Viejo is a firm favourite with the locals here and it’s safe to say that the people of La Rioja know a thing or two about good Riojas!
Tummies well-fed and wine well-drunk, we headed back to our hotel for a (to us anyway) well-earned night’s kip – all the while excited about all the wine goodness to follow the very next day! 😄
Read more: Best things to do in Bilbao
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