Rioja – RV Travels in Europe and North America

September 28, 2026 Haro SP

We are in one of our visions of heaven. Ton came up with a plan to spend the next several days in Rioja which is a very famous wine region in Spain. Rioja wines are one of our favorites and today we are in Haro which is the center of the Rioja wine region.

The old town hall of Haro now decorated with wine barrels from some of the biggest producers near the town.

It was a short shift to Haro from Burgos. Strictly speaking our planing for this trip has not been great. Today we are closer to Vitoria than Burgos so we have doubled back significantly. But I guess at this point our travels are not about efficiency but enjoyment.

The center of Haro with the church in the background.

After about an hours drive we settled into our campground and headed into town on a reconnaissance. Because it was Monday we knew it would be quiet as many of the restaurants and businesses close on Monday.

This is part of the gastronomical part of town. We think it will be much more active tomorrow.

We did find a very nice restaurant open on Monday and as it was the only one open it was doing good business. We grabbed a table and I went to the bar to impose my bad Spanish on another patient Spaniard. Despite my stumbling Spanish we got what we wanted. I have been impressed about how nice the Spanish have been when I break out my bad Spanish on them. They are clearly fluent in English, but go along and even encourage me to try to speak Spanish instead of switching to English.

There are several wineries here in town that we plan on exploring tomorrow. We made a quick run out to the wineries and saw one Bodega open. We popped in and while they didn’t sell wine by the glass they were happy to sell us a bottle that we could pour a glass from and take home the rest . When the server delivered the bottle he also brought a nice plate of sausage and almonds for us to eat.

The winery where we enjoyed a nice glass of wine.

After we sipped our glasses of wine we packed up the rest of the bottle and headed back to François. Just as we returned there was some ominous thunder off in the distance, so we settled in for the rest of the afternoon and relaxed.

October 8, 2018 Laguardia SP

We had wanted to visit some of the caves under Laguardia, but when we arrived yesterday it was too late to get in. We decided to stay around another day and get in a tour.

With time in the morning we lazed around a bit before heading over to Laguardia. We had a specific winery we were most interested in, but today they were only offering tours in Spanish, we contemplated going along, but they said it would be a waste as they spent a lot of time explaining the process and if we were not fluent it would be boring.

While waiting for the tour we watched the Basque dancers on the clock tower on the town hall.

Instead we went to another winery and booked ourselves on a tour of Bodega Carlos San Pedro. We had a couple of hours to kill so we settled into a coffee shop and watched a replay of the Real Madrid game with the local team Since we did not know the score it was live to us. In the end the local team scored literally at the final whistle, and all of the locals who had kindly not given away the score shared a big high five with us.

Ton liked the Basqueness of this fellow.

When we got to Carlos San Pedro it was packed. In fact the owner was startled about how many English speaking guests he had. Towards the end he began asking people to wait 15 minutes and he would run a second tour. Ton and I decided to join his tour, as he was clearly the owner and winemaker. It was a good decision as Carlos gave an in depth and clear description of the winemaking process in the Rioja region. He showed us the original winemaking facility before admitting that they had moved to a modern facility about 15 years ago. They did have a splendid video of the process using the old equipment including a hand operated press that was still on display.

After the explanation we went down into the caves under the winery to see the cement tanks they use, as well as the barrel and bottle rooms. The caves have been under the town for hundreds of years, and go back to the time when the town was a fortress. There are over 300 caves under the town, and many have been used for winemaking and storage for the last 150 years.

Ron looking into the 6000l tank of Rioja Wine.

It ended with a taste of the wine that was in a 6000 liter tank aging, as well as two from the bottle. The wine was superb, and we have been on a lot of wine tours in our time, but this was one of the best.

It was still pretty early so we decided to move south a little bit to get us positioned for another town tomorrow. Tonight we are in the parking lot of a major grocery store with 6 other motorhomes. We were able to get some supplies. The drive to here was thru the Cebollera National Park, and it was quite beautiful, though the weather was a little sketchy or we may have stopped for the night. It gives us something to aim for in the future.

Some of the Mountains in Cebollera National Park.

October 7, 2018 Elciego SP

We are in Rioja country. The plan for the day was to drive to the fortified town of Laguardia which is famous for its cave bodegas (wine cellars). Ron did his normal research on where to stay for the night and found the location for an aire that he thought was in Laguardia. After punching in the GPS coordinates we had a very pleasant drive of about 1 1/2 hours to the aire. After parking we headed into town to look for a particular bodega (winery). After wandering around the little village (which was quite nice) and some head scratching Ron realized we were one town short and not in Laguardia but Elciego.

In addition to wine the area is famous for peppers. Any area that has good peppers is good with Ton.

We headed back to the aire and drove the 5km to Laguardia. The town was humming with all of the local families coming into town for Sunday. We finally found a place to park on the shoulder of the main road and headed into town. Laguardia is a “puebla bonita” of Spain. It is a hilltop fortified town surrounded by vineyards. There was a concert going on in the main square and people socializing at all of the bars and restaurants. We popped into the tourist office to ask a couple of questions. She gave us the information we were looking for but than told us that as it was Sunday everyone but the restaurants was closing at 2pm for the day. Ton and I took a pass thru town and decided it was worth coming back when everything was open, so we will return tomorrow.

When we pulled into Laguardia Ron thought there must be an event, but it was just a typical Sunday.

In the end we decided to return to the aire in Elciego. The tourist information in Laguardia told us we were welcome to sleep in two of the town parking lots, but they were jammed. Elciego is another wine centered village and has a fantastic hotel, winery, restaurant in it. The Hotel Marques de Riscal is designed by the American architect Frank Gehry. It really is an interesting building though you can debate whether it fits the terroir of the area. At first Ron did not like it but it grew on him after we took a walk down to take a look at it and the surrounding vineyards.