Wednesday morning was cold. We had become accustomed to the summer heat but it was in the 60's on Wednesday as a cold front had moved through. We had a bit of a hurry but Izzy's parents wanted to see a little bit of Zaragoza because the basilica we saw the night before looked quite fun. By good luck, we had gotten a hotel room next to it so we didn't have a long walk in the morning. The style is baroque and it was built over a 200 year period starting in 1681. It's called Basilica of Our Lady of Pilar as a reference and homage to the virgin Mary. The outside had Spanish style roofing that was painted green, yellow, and blue. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures of the inside.
After our short visit to the Basilica, we headed off to visit the Marqués de Riscal winery. It's located in the Rioja region of Spain, which is where the best wine in the country is made. Our destination was a short drive from the regional capital, Logroño in a town called Elciego. We heard about the winery from some private students. They recommended it as a fun and modern winery to visit. It was recently redesigned by the American/Canadian architect Frank Gehry. The guide told us they flew him over and opened two bottles of wine they had in storage from his birth year. Apparently it worked. The hotel building in the picture is their hotel and can cost up to 300 Euros a night. Interested in some lunch at the restaurant? They have tasting menus that start at 55 a person.
The tour we took gave a brief history of the winery and where they ship their wines. Typically, Spanish wines have four different categories. Marqués de Riscal produces just three because they said the fourth one had a good enough quality to be bumped up to the next level so they did that not to lose money on sales. We saw the machines where they ferment the wine, press it, bottle it, store it, and ship it. The process was very interesting and we ended by tasting some of their white and red wines.
A little buzzed on wine, we decided not to pay 200 Euros for lunch and went across the street to a fun restaurant that was built into some old wine caves. We had a great three course lunch for cheaper than one tasting menu at the hotel restaurant then headed back to Logroño to find our hotel.
I have to say, finding the hotel was a first for me. It was located in a shopping center next to grocery stores and appears to have been a large warehouse store at some point. We took a nap and then headed in to Logroño to check out the sites. It's a small town of just over 150,000 people but quite nice. We found part of the trail the Camino de Santiago that Iz and I are planning to walk in September. There was an old church nearby that had cookies and a huge display explaining the walk and its origins.
We finished our walk with a drink at a local bar and headed back to our hotel to play some games and call it an evening. Thursday and Friday, we'll be in San Sebastian. Since we were here in April, we aren't going to post any new pictures but if you didn't see them the first time, here is the link to our pictures from there. They might be better since the weather isn't promising such sunny skies while we'll be there.
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