The Rioja

In May we travelled to the Rioja wine region in Spain. This was our second time to the region as we had first visited it during our trip to Spain in 2022.

We stayed in a town called Laguardia, a small castle town in the region that we had seen during our first trip and were enchanted by. The population of the town is only about 1,500 people, but it is a popular day trip destination, and it gets swarmed in the summer vacation season. Outside vehicles are not allowed inside the city wall, which is fortunate as the streets are extremely narrow.

 

Staying at a hotel in Laguardia afforded us the opportunity to enjoy the evening when the crowds had subsided. Although small, the town boasts some excellent restaurants and, of course, excellent local wines.

Walking through the streets of the town, it always seemed to be very cool, even when temperatures outside the walls climbed. At first, we couldn’t figure out why, but then we took a couple of tours into the caverns beneath the town where wine is aged.

 

It turns out that the whole town is honeycombed with these caverns, many of which are interconnected. And, of course, they are vented to the surface which allows the cool air from the caverns to create the pleasant temperatures felt in the streets of the town. Mystery solved!

 

Laguardia is also known for the clock in the town square. As the top of the hour approaches, people gather to watch the clock as figures emerge and dance for the onlookers. The town even has a statue dedicated to the onlookers.

Apparently, this region is also famous for asparagus, especially white asparagus. The local markets all had it for sale, and it seemed to be on every menu. Sadly, we failed to try it. Next time!

During one of our days in Rioja, we took a guided tour of some vineyards. We had done the tour with this company previously and liked it so much that we wanted to do it again.

Yes, those are wine glass carriers hanging from our necks. 

A gift from the winery (and very practical).

We were joined by another couple and had a very enjoyable and educational day visiting two wineries (with tastings at each) and then having lunch with our hosts at their home.

After our lunch we went over to the vineyard next door to learn more about the soil and unique environment that makes Rioja special.

On our way to our next destination, we stopped at the Marques de Riscal winery for a tour. The winery is well known for its excellent wines, but also for its on-site hotel which was designed by world famous architect Frank Gehry.

The thing that strikes us is that there is such a diversity in wine making methods and philosophy; ranging from very traditional small wineries making very few (relatively) bottles each year, to the large modern wineries such as this, producing more than six million bottles of wine each year.

We will end it here as this post is getting a bit long.

Salud!

El Capricho de Gaudi

 

During our trip to the north coast of Spain, we took a day trip from Santander to the town of Comillas for the express purpose of touring a villa designed by famed architect Antoni Gaudi.

Most of Gaudi’s work is located in Catalonia and his most iconic design is the famous Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.

 

El Capricho was built between 1883 and 1885. It was commissioned by Máximo Díaz de Quijano, a wealthy lawyer and fan of music and botany. As would be expected, Gaudi’s design incorporated elements paying tribute to these interests. One really senses the soul of Maximo is a part of the building.

Tragically, Maximo passed away just a few months after completion of the project.

 

The building passed on to his wife and son who did some renovations in the early 1900’s but then fell into disrepair after the Spanish Civil War.

In 1977 the family sold the property to a businessman who renovated it and turned it into a restaurant. The restaurant operated from 1989 until 2009, however, due to economic circumstances, the restaurant was then forced to close.

 

In 2010 it reopened its doors as a museum and was voted World's Best Landmark in 2023 at the Remarkable Venue Awards.

Having toured other Gaudi buildings during our visits to Barcelona, many of the design elements here were very familiar to us and one can immediately recognize this building as a Gaudi.

Overall an enjoyable morning visiting this unique property.

Salud!

Grocery Shopping

This is another post about the everyday things in Alicante. Today’s topic, grocery shopping.

We seem to go grocery shopping A LOT. Maybe it’s because we just don’t plan very far ahead. Fortunately, there is a grocery store about a 3 minute walk from us. It’s called Consum (a chain throughout Spain, I think there are about 5 in Alicante) and this is where we do most of our shopping. However, there are a few items we like that we can’t get there so every week or two we venture further to a Mercadona (the largest supermarket chain in Spain, there are about 15 in the city of Alicante alone) or Alcampo (I think there are two in Alicante), or El Corte Inglés (“The English Court”, the largest department store chain in Spain; there are two in Alicante and they both have a grocery section; they are in the center of the city).  All of these stores tend to have a large number of products in their own store brand.

Dennis loves the shopping carts. The wheels are such that they turn every which way; you can do a complete 360 degree turn in place, or move sideways and diagonally. Brilliant!

 

Interesting items you will find in the grocery stores include: bone-in legs of jamón (dry cured ham); a wide variety of alcoholic beverages (not just limited to wine and beer); UHT milk (ultra-high temperature; does not need refrigeration until opened); room temperature eggs (eggs have a natural protective coating and they are not washed before being sold so this is not removed – as it is in the US). 

   

They do not have half and half, light cream, or heavy cream. There is a product called nata (cooking cream) which is somewhat thick. I’ve read that you can create a substitute for half and half by mixing whole milk (the UHT milk) and nata in equal parts. I haven’t tried doing that. Consum sells a German coffee creamer product that’s a reasonable substitute to use in my coffee.

What you won’t find are: cigarettes (these are sold at state licensed stores called Tabacos) or medications (neither over the counter or prescription); these are sold at Farmacías). 

We can’t seem to find dill pickles. Dennis had a favorite brand at Hannaford called Grillos and he was able to find a recipe that mimicked them so has made his own.  He is still in search of a decent cracker.  

Soups don’t seem to be very popular; imagine the soup aisle in your local grocery store, probably the whole length of the aisle – nothing like that here, mostly cream soups (vegetable, asparagus, mushroom, squash), and broths (for making rice dishes).  Also very limited choices of salad dressings (we’ve only seen one brand and it has only yogurt dressing, honey mustard, or caésar). Dennis has made his own blue cheese and I’ve made my own Italian. 

Cottage cheese has been difficult to find reliably as is maple syrup. El Corte Inglés has a gourmet food area where they stock Vermont and Canadian maple syrup.

We have not been able to find food grade distilled white vinegar. In the cleaning aisle you might find a higher percentage vinegar for cleaning purposes; I suppose you could just dilute this?  There are plenty of other types of vinegar – white wine, red wine, apple cider, balsamic.

 

There are some US brands but not many.  Multiple varieties of condiments by Heinz, Hellman’s, and Gulden’s are readily available; also common are Starbucks, Doritos, Cheetos, and Oreos. There are lots of Pringles flavors (including Jamón, and Texas BBQ). The cereal section is much smaller than in US but includes several Kelloggs selections. Philadelphia cream cheese is very popular; we have even seen it on menus listed simply as “Philadelphia” (such as  “Bagel with salmon and Philadelphia”).  

   

LOTS of olives. 

 

LOTS of Coke, a little bit of Pepsi. 

 

Pretty much any canned or bottled beverage can be bought in a multi-pack or you can break them out individually. It irks Dennis a bit to have to fish around for an intact pack. The price label on the shelf will show the individual unit price and the per pack price.

At the grocery store checkout you are asked if you need a bag (which will cost you 0.15 apiece; we always bring a few). There are NO baggers. As your items are scanned you are expected to self-bag. Also, no one is ever in a hurry at the check out. 

Charging for bags is not just at the grocery stores; any store you purchase from is required by law to charge for bags (clothing stores, department stores) and they can’t be flimsy single use bags; they have to be thicker multi-use bags.

Finally, I know it’s not quite grocery store related but, they do NOT used twist off caps on wine; only cork (and no plastic “corks”).

Well, this has been a long post, but now I must be off to the grocery store. 

Salud!

A Trip to Bilbao

In June we took a trip up to the Rioja wine region and the north coast of Spain.

One of the places we visited is the city of Bilbao. We did not know a lot about Bilbao, but from what we read it sounded like an interesting place to go.

Travelling from a short stay in Rioja, we drove over the mountain range separating it from the coast and towards the metropolis. Immediately we were struck by the change in the scenery.

Whereas most of Spain is sparsely vegetated, here we were greeted with lush tree and vegetative cover.

We had read that the north coast climate was akin to that of England and Ireland and that proved to be true. True to form, our stay in Bilbao included periods of rain throughout. We noted that almost everyone carried umbrellas during our forays, and we followed suit.

The city proved to be quite impressive. It has an extensive retail area, excellent restaurants and a thriving art culture.

The “must see” museum in Bilbao is the Guggenheim. The building was designed by famed architect Frank Gehry and the exterior and interior features are incredibly intricate and beautiful.

The art in the building is modernist and, while impressive, not really our cup of tea as they say.

Outside the building is the famed “Puppy”. The giant West Highland terrier is completely covered in flowering plants and makes for an iconic photo opportunity.

As I mentioned earlier, Bilbao is home to some wonderful restaurants. In this area of Spain there are numerous pintxos bars.  Pintxos are this area’s tapas and are small bites of food, usually on a slice of bread. Visiting a couple of bars to sample their specialties and enjoy a caña (small beer) is a fun way to spend a afternoon or evening. I don't remember what was in the pintxos pictured above, but I do remember they were delicious.

The shopping scene here is also great. We found that the stores here were larger and nicer than in Alicante and there were more specialty stores. 

Photo from Google Maps

Topping things off, we found a bar that specialized in Scotch. According to their website, the owner wanted to create a bar that he would want to drink at. It is a small space but boasts an impressive array of Scotch and other liquors.

Overall, we found Bilbao to be well worth visiting. Even the rain didn’t diminish our impression of this wonderful city.

Salud.

Numbers

As alluded to in a previous blog post, we have to get used to Celsius, centimeters, kilograms, decimals, 24 hour clocks, etc. …

Dennis has set his weather app to show the temperature in Celsius.  I haven’t done the same yet, but I should. I do a quick conversion in my head. I have a few key numbers memorized: 10 C is 50 F, 20 C is 68 F, and 30 C is 86. A lot of temps around 30 C lately.

Also, when cooking, if we are using an old recipe we need to convert to Celsius to know what to set the oven at. It doesn’t help that the dial on the oven looks like this:

 Also, measurements need to be converted to kilograms or grams. Packages of pasta in the US are usually sold by the pound (454 grams); here the typical package weight is 500 gm. If we split the package into 4 servings I’m getting an extra 11.5 grams! Fortunately, they do use tablespoons and teaspoons.

It is standard to use a 24 hour clock to indicate time. Interestingly, morning (mañana) seems to refer to anything up to 14:00 hrs.

(note the unintentional selfie)

An interesting language note:  mañana as an adverb (answering the question “when?”) means tomorrow; mañana as a noun means morning.

This leads to the interesting phrase: “mañana por la mañana” which means tomorrow morning.

With numbers and decimals they use commas where in US periods are used, and vice versa.

12,700.50 in the US would be 12.700,00 in Spain

And don’t get me started about dates. I can’t get used to the date, month, year format.

Today is July 21^st which is written 21/7/2025. It stops me every time I look at expiration dates on food. When someone asks me for a date (such as my birthdate) I just say November 16, instead of 11/16 (or 16/11!).  Somehow Dennis got into our health insurance system with the birthdate May 6^th instead of June 5^th.

Since we’re not driving we don’t have to worry too much about kilometers vs miles. However, if I’m looking up how far it is to somewhere and I’m not using a US VPN it will be in kilometers so I have to pay attention to that.

Salud!

Miki

Getting Around in Alicante

One of the things we love about Alicante is the public transportation system.

The trams and buses are clean and comfortable (although finding a seat on the tram is becoming more challenging in the summer tourist season). We can get just about anywhere in the city and beyond quite efficiently.

The tram into the city center only takes about 20 minutes and the bus ride is a bit longer but is usually less crowded. We have bought rechargeable passes, and the ride rates are quite reasonable.

And this extends to areas outside the city as well. We have taken day trips to surrounding towns using only public transportation and found it to be quite efficient and convenient. Of course, this usually means that we walk quite a bit as well, but that is something we do anyway as part of our daily routine.

Our apartment includes a parking space for a car, but we haven’t used it so far, and do not anticipate needing to buy or lease a vehicle. On the occasions where we may need one, we will rent it.

Which leads up to another topic. Our US driver’s licenses are only valid for the first six months after we entered the country. Rental agencies do check this so we will need to go through the process of getting a Spanish driver’s license.

From what we have been able to find out, we need to contact a driving school that will provide us with the training needed as well as assistance with taking the test. Our readers can look forward to a future post about this process.

Salud!