We have spent a fabulous weekend with David and some new Spanish friends immersing ourselves in the local culture. We enjoyed typical Spanish meals from this region including delicious patatas bravas riojan style, vegetable menestras and pinchos. The latter are eaten in the evening from many small bars in the town centre where people meet their friends and eat while walking through the busy streets., Pinchos are different combinations of ingredients on bread and Calle Laurel is renowned for this speciality,and we ate there last night. Of course all this food had to be washed down with a few glasses of vino tinto!
We also went to a nearby small town and were privileged to see some flamenco dancing performed by women and children from a local flamenco club. This is not often seen in the north of Spain because the local folk dance is the jota. Unbelievably we were lucky enough to also see the jota performed by local young people in Laquarda.
This is a beautiful small town set on a hillside where today we visited a small traditional winery, and then later we visited a large commercial business housed in a stunning building designed by the same architect who designed the Guggenheim in Bilbao. We gained an insight into the production process and managed to go home sober.
We have some wonderful photographs and these will follow as we have no camera connection at the moment.
June
