From 15 PAX, to 5, to 4, we were now 2 and headed on a bus from San Seb to Logrono! A super cute old town in the heart of the Rioja wine region.  A perfect place for a stopover on our way down to Madrid.  We loved the bar lined streets, at a rate of nearly 1 bar per permanent citizen, albeit with about half shut down for vacation there were still plenty left for us!!  Highlights included:

• Cruising the bars, obviously
• Hanging out with a lovely young girl (that’s what we call 32 year olds now) from Minnesota and making the most of befriending a Spanish speaker (for clarity, that’s the same person….we didn’t go too crazy and speak to 2 strangers!!)
• A tour of a 125 year old Bodega born out of phylloxera’s introduction into France
• Once again having a hotel employee barge into our room, this time while we were actually in bed!! In clear violation of local laws stating: “If the bed’s Rioja-ing, don’t come knocking!”
  • To be fair, she didn’t even bother knocking.

Then, finally, to round out our first EVER non driving tour of mainland Europe, we needed 2 more trains over 4 hours to get to one of the most beautiful and underrated capital city’s in Europe, Madrid.  The impressive architecture, beautiful gardens, thriving culture, palaces, massive square, cute, bar lined streets with balconies for all, make Madrid a lovely place to finish off a great holiday.  We even had our first and only European pillows!  See previous blogs for more comments on these (specifically The Reich Stuff and The Frog Prince).  And James gained an appreciation for the gender imbalance, when, after making many loo rated complaints (see pretty much every previous blog) Lea talked of needing to check the waste-paper (in every sense of the term “waste”) baskets every time in order to make acquaintance with the local non-flushables. I’ll never complain again…at least until the next trip.

Highlights included:

• A walk along the Calle de Alcala to the stunning Palcio de Cibeles (once a post office!!) and through the Parque de El Retiro, including a free exposition at the Palacio de Velasquez
• A walk through the streets around Plaza Mayor looking for calamari sandwiches
• A walk around our local area sampling the bar scene (maybe a couple few of laps)
• A walk into a bar (already carrying a bottle of wine) because it was calling us in (before arguing with the server about whether we’d paid already – and being saved by a local who’d been keeping a close eye on us for some reason…)
• A walk to the Mercado de San Miguel on our last morning for some final snacks, before seeing the sweaty cheeses, mozzarella with flies, smoked salmon and oysters without refrigeration, plethora of deep fried options but no deep-fryers (?), before settling on some final bubbles, sherries and jamon rolls instead!

I guess just mostly a lot of walking…and eating (and drinking)…eso es españa.

Thanks PPS2024! https://europez2a.com/pps-2024/

PPPS: Europe – We’ll be back in a few months.