Haro day 2

On Friday we visited Roda winery which is the youngest Haro winery at 29 years old. Their techniques are very different to Lopez de Heredia as they use a lot of new French oak, however they do also use wooden vats, rather than stainless steel. Tempranillo, once again, is the main grape variety used. Varieties like Cabernet Sauvignon are not allowed to be planted in this region. The two wines we tasted were well integrated and not over wooded, very fine indeed. We had a family of Americans from Miami on the tour with us, and we had good fun tasting with them. The tour guide left us to help ourselves to the wine. We also had an olive oil tasting as the owners of the winery also produce this.

We went for a walk through the countryside this afternoon and noticed on the outskirts of Haro a lot of newer apartment blocks, while the buildings in the central, older part of town are a bit run down. This town is larger than we originally thought.

Haro

Haro is a good base for wine tasting in La Rioja as it has a large number of wineries located near the railway station (for transportation historically), so you don't need a car. It is a small town, run down in parts. 

Our first winery visit was to R. Lopez de Heredia, the oldest winery in Haro, dating from 1877. The tour was very interesting as they make their wine using traditional methods, firstly kept in large wooden vats, over a hundred years old, and then in aged barrels, no stainless steel is used. The style of wine making is to have little influence from the wood, but maintain fresh flavours through acids and tannins. They have their own cooperage on site, where they make new barrels as well as keeping the old vats repaired. The wine is only released after at least 4 years. There are extensive underground tunnels, excavated over a century ago where the barrels are stored. The workers on the excavations used to be given 4 litres of wine a day! The winemaking techniques in Rioja were refined by the French, who during the phylloxera outbreak sourced their wine from this region. Tempranillo is the main grape variety used, with some grenache and graciano. We are always interested to hear about grape harvesting techniques. They hand harvest generally in October and at the end of each row are placed cylindrical containers for the grape buckets to be emptied into. The grapes are transported in these containers (which they make in the cooperage) to minimise damage to the bunches. We tried 3 of their reds, all estate wines and high quality. The wines retain remarkable freshness for their age. Not expensive with the highest price being 23 euro for a 2004. In the tunnels are kept bottles of older vintages from particularly good years, which if offered to a collector to purchase fetch at least 2000 euro, just for one bottle!

We are staying in an apartment, so are self catering from the supermarket. The selection and low price of seafood is amazing. There seems to be more of it sold in the supermarket than meat.

Zaha Hadid designed the visitors centre in a decanter shape.

The grape picking containers, still in use. Probably not the horse.

Fish for sale in the supermarket.

Zaragoza

We stopped at Zaragoza for a night en route to Rioja. It was another quick trip by train and we received breakfast, the Spanish omelette coming up quite well for rail food. Zaragoza has an impressive Basilica, it is a real surprise to come across in a town that is not really on a tourist route. It also has a collection of Roman ruins from the time it was known as Caesaraugusta. An origami museum made a unique visit with some very clever exhibits, including a dress made out of paper.

We stayed at the Melia Zaragoza, which is almost like a grand hotel in terms of its size. Our room was large and the hallway long. 

Madrid and Toledo

We arrived in Madrid on a hot Saturday afternoon via high speed train. Atocha train station is massive and we even had a travelator to aid us get to the exit. Heavily armed police were standing around and we would see more of them in other busy locations in Madrid. The streets were very busy on the way to the hotel, which fortunately wasn't too far, and as much as possible we walked in the shade of buildings as the late afternoon temperature reached 40C. There are many small eateries and tapas bars near the hotel so that was easy for us, some of them quite crowded on a Saturday night.

On Sunday we had a day trip to Toledo, and we headed off in plenty of time to the train station as we figured it might be difficult to locate our train. There are two different levels for train access and we needed help to locate the entry to the 'baja' level. All bags have to be X-rayed. It only took half an hour by fast train to arrive at the very attractive railway station of Toledo. Even though it was forecast to be 39C, the morning was pleasant, so we could walk up to the viewing point. We lost count of the number of tour buses on this road, we had not seen so many since Istanbul. Toledo was once the capital of Spain and the large building that towers over the city is the Alcazar, now a military museum. The artist, El Greco, is a famous former resident. Fortunately most of the streets are very narrow and shaded, giving relief from the sun to the many tourists in town.

On Monday we walked around Madrid, which seems a pleasant place for a capital. We came across a gourmet market which sells an amazing selection of tapas, so we had a tasty breakfast. There are so many places offering appetising food snacks, you would never go hungry here. We appreciated the large, shady parks in the city, as well as free entry day to the Thyssen-Bornemisza art museum.

Plaza de Mayor, Madrid

A beautiful garden bed of geraniums in Madrid.

Córdoba

Another comfortable ride on the AVE high speed train delivered us to Córdoba. We were actually on it long enough to receive a drink. When we arrived at Córdoba and walked the long length of the train we could see the majority of the carriages were not in service. We presume that is because the train goes down to the Costa del Sol full, and then they bring back the empty carriages to Madrid to fill them up again for the return journey.

The dry heat in the afternoon is intense in Córdoba, so we took relief in the Mezquita, a former mosque with a 16th century church in the middle. It is a vast building with over 800 columns topped with red and white arches. We found it one of the most interesting sights of our trip. No queues either.

We are staying at another NH hotel, well situated half way between the railway station and the Mezquita. Lovely big and quiet rooms. There is a basic restaurant on the plaza near by that was handy for us. Their grilled squid was very good, glad we avoided the pork lung stew.

Nerja

Our next destination was Nerja, a coastal town east of Malaga. The one and a half hour bus trip wound through the never ending developments on the Costa del Sol, our usual travel companions being the young and the old. Nerja has an attractive setting, with great views from the Balcon de Europa. It's a busy place with tourists enjoying lying in the sun. Burriana beach, a 20 minute walk from the centre of town, looks like the best choice, with many sun beds available and restaurants along the beach. We enjoyed paella for lunch here. We are staying in a very centrally located small hotel, Puerta del Mar, which has a nice, quiet roof top pool.

Malaga

We returned to Granada for a couple of nights and have got very spoiled with the generous serves of free tapas. We now have to adapt to life before these treats.

From Granada to Malaga part of our trip was by high speed train. We picked it up at Antequera St Ana station. We were the only ones boarding and had to make a run for it as the first carriage pulling in was no. 32 and we were in carriage 5, with an engine dividing the train. It is the longest train and platform we have ever seen. They only allow 1 minutes at the station and we were beckoned by the conductors to hurry up and jump into carriage 11 from which we could walk through to our seats. The train was full. It only took 20 minutes to reach Malaga, at speeds of up to 300 km/h.

Malaga is the gateway to the Costa de Sol, with an airport as well as the high speed train.

The side of town near the railway station is not appealing with roadworks and ugly apartment blocks, but the town centre has a very attractive shopping district, complete with a shade cloth covered main street, as we also saw in Granada. What a good idea! The harbour area has been attractively renewed with nice promenades. We climbed up to the old castle for great views of the city. As per usual there is no end of dining options and the city really comes alive in the evening.

On Tuesday we caught a bus to Marbella, which claims to be a ritzy town on the Costa de Sol. The beach and sea front area were nothing special, but there is a very attractive old town with narrow streets and flower baskets and a good choice of restaurants.

Bus travel is very easy and comfortable and is a good alternative when trains aren't available. We will probably explore more destinations with bus when we revisit Spain.

The above photos are all of Marbella.

Shade cloth protection in Malaga.

Malaga