Eight days from Madrid through the vine-laden lands of Rioja, the monasteries where Castilian Spanish was first written down, and north into Navarra and the Basque coast.
As it ran
The itinerary
September 13
Madrid · Burgos · Laguardia
Departure from Madrid toward Rioja, with a stop in Burgos for the UNESCO-listed cathedral, finished in Gothic style in 1221. Lunch at Huerta del Roco, then north to Laguardia on its rocky hilltop and three nights at the Hospedería de los Parajes — which has a subterranean bodega of its own.
September 14
Dinastía Vivanco · Bodegas Ysios
A morning at Vivanco, where the history and culture of wine is told through displays and art made in worship of the vine — and the world's largest collection of corkscrews. Tasting, then lunch at a local bodega, then Bodegas Ysios, Santiago Calatrava's wave of a building. They make good wine too.
September 15
San Millán de la Cogolla
The monasteries of Yuso and Suso, among the oldest in Spain, where the earliest written Castilian survives in the margins of a manuscript.
September 16–17
Logroño · Navarra
Tapas along Calle Laurel in Logroño, then east into Navarra — pilgrim roads, Romanesque bridges and the old kingdom's capital at Pamplona.
September 18–20
San Sebastián · Bilbao
The Cantabrian coast: pintxos in the Parte Vieja, a table above La Concha, and the Guggenheim at Bilbao before farewells.
Photographs from this journey
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