Archive for February, 2010
Travel tip sheet for Bierzo
Thinking of travelling to Bierzo? Get answers to questions like: Where is it? Where to Stay? What and where to eat?
Bierzo in a nutshell…(part 2)
So, I’ve finished traveling all around the place (I hope) and back into writing up my last trip to Spain….
Lunch at Meson Chuchi
It is still the depths of winter in La Rioja, we got about 30 to 40 cms of snow today, we are snowed and not going anywhere for at least a day. A good time to catch up on posting and drinking some nice Riojas. It has been cold all week, so a big hearty meal for lunch has been the order of the day. In this part of Spain that usually means a trip to an Asador, or as I discovered yesterday, parrilla full of chuletas (lamb chops) at home, but more on this later. If you’ve ever been to north west Spain you will have seen Asador restaurants all over the place, truck stops, small villages, big towns, everywhere. The basic premise of the Asador is a woodfired oven that is used to cook just about everything in the place.
Lunch at Amelibia
Amelibia is my favourite place to eat in the old walled town of Laguardia. We ate here a couple of times on our last trip and were very keen to get back and see what’s new. It’s a small restaurant (just 12 tables) that overlooks the vineyards and across to the Cantabrian mountain range. Laguardia is just about the last outpost of Euskadi, or Basque country, and as such the food here is a good mix of Basque food and traditional Riojan food. So you will have a menu that has things like kokotxas pil pil (throat of hake in an olive oil and garlic emulsion, a very Basque dish) and rabo de vaca al tinto vino (oxail in red wine, a typically Riojan dish).
Bierzo in a nutshell…(part 1)
It’s impossible to define a whole region after visiting for a couple of days and talking to a handful of winemakers, but here is a quick overview of what makes this a special place to make wine.
3 Days in Bierzo
I’ve been off-line for the past couple of days, which has been kinda nice. There has been plenty to write about and take photos of tho. When I was planning this trip, I was having a chat to Dougie from The Spanish Acquisition about his last trip to Spain, his highlight was a day or so in Bierzo. I had planned to go to Rueda and Toro on the way to Ribera del Duero, but Dougie was raving about this little town called Villafranca del Bierzo, ‘It’s a must do’ he said. Sign me up, I thought. And he was right, it is now another in the long list of my favourite places in Spain.
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