foodie lunch | Chaos roaming the world

We got our little revenge on the Frenchmen in the morning. Number 3 woke up at 7am, punctual as always. There is no such thing as “keeping quiet” when you have a toddler. The Frenchmen however didn’t even show their faces before we left at 10 am.

The Rioja valley got a bit more of our attention before we will wave goodbye to Spain tomorrow. LaGuardia was only a short, but lovely drive away. Too early for lunch, a bit too expensive for coffee. Walking around the narrow alleys, looking into doorways with heavy doors and amazing spaces inside was a good way to spend time here though. It’s a very pretty, walled little town. To get through the remaining time until lunch, we had another little treat in a bakery.

From Laguardia, we drove on to Logroño, the next bigger town. Lunch here came recommended by our guide book, still it was too early for it. The Spanish opening hours around 1 or even 1.30pm really get to us. So we went grocery shopping before finding a parking spot in a central garage and headed into town. The first place we went to was smack in the middle of everything. Now, I could tell that it was Saturday: Town was full of people enjoying food, even a couple of hen and stag dues, I think. The menu looked as if not a single vegetarian thing was offered so Flo made us turn around and try the next place.

The next place was literally called “Umm”. Despite the odd name, it was a great place! I went straight up to the counter to ask for vegetarian food and the second waitress (the first one didn’t speak English) came up with an option for me. It was a mix of caramelized onions, pickled onions and peppers and it tasted great! In the pintxo version, it had a piece of meat but it tasted great on its own.

This was the sophisticated shot from the restaurant

Flo tried two of the daily pintxos with fish, I had their version of patatas bravas, then crème brulee, then Flo ordered one more pintxo from the kitchen (fried pig’s ear, by our guesses) and we had deconstructed cheese cake and coffee in the end. XD And all of that for 23€. Gotta love pintxos and small sized portions…you get to try so many different things!

With this great success under our belts, we left the Rioja valley and turned our faces towards France. We won’t reach it today but it’s the general direction here on out. The camp ground was about a 2 hour drive away, up in the hills. Number 3 and myself fell asleep on the way there (food coma in my case…) but woke up before we arrived at the camp ground. The last 20km or so were windy roads up the hills, right next to a small river. It made for a picturesque drive and then our camp ground was right next to the river as well.

When we explored the place a bit after “coffee”, we found an access to the river where all the kids from the camp ground were playing in the water. Number 3 looked like he wanted to go where all the kids were and started to walk right into the water in his sandals. Thus, Flo took off his shoes and prepared Number 3 for contact with water. One of the older girls came up and said something about “muy frio”, just when Flo put Baby’s feet into the water. The expected scream of protest didn’t come. Huh? Instead, Number 3 kept walking forward, deeper into the water. Soon, his diaper and body were almost in so Flo quickly picked him up. Now there was a scream of protest. Huh? Flo had confirmed that the water was really rather cold and Number 3 was a wuss even in the pools on camp grounds but now he wanted to go swimming in a cold mountain river? The answer was yes. What was lacking every time Flo tried the pool with him was available here in abundance: Older kids doing all sorts of interesting things with toys and tools. Number 3 was ready to get up to his neck into really cold water for that. We didn’t let him get into it that deep. Luckily, some of the older kids took pity and showed him what they were doing in the shallower part of the river. They had small nets and caught fish into a Barbie bucket. The oldest girl even got one of the fish out to show it to Number 3.

In the evening, some of the kids went to the camp ground’s playground so Number 3 had even more chances to absorb them. I thought he’d sleep well after all the input but he woke up again 30 minutes after he went to sleep. Probably his teeth again. He seemed to really be in pain. That last molar is taking its bloody time.

On our way to LaGuardia
We had very nice views on vineyards
An interesting wave-y building, probably a restaurant?
Views from a terrace down into the valley
Number 3 was in the wrap for once
The tower was closed but the little burglar had to try anyway
Impression of the small alleys within the walls
There was a bronze statue of bags
We’ve seen way less of these in Basque than Catalonia
Not just window shopping…
It’s his “old man” interpretation
Number 3 was too hungry to wait until the restaurant
This was the sophisticated shot from the restaurant
Still loving the swing
So happy!
Pretending to refill his cups from the taps
He just kept walking…
So more of his clothes had to go
Straight towards the other kids, no regard for cold water
Number 3 enjoying Spanish cold sausage…such a carnivore

It was Number 3’s worst night yet. I don’t know, he just woke up and up and up again. In the end, the app said, he had 4.45 hours of sleep that night. If he had that little sleep than I had as little as well.

Groggy, we climbed out of the tent and down the ladder in the morning. But we had breakfast booked at the campsite so we just had to survive packing first. We weren’t as fast as we wanted to be but still took some time to talk to the NZ couple on a motorbike a bit more. Then, we headed out for breakfast.

I knew my expectations shouldn’t have been high and I somehow still managed to be disappointed. Probably by the utter lack of jam for breakfast. Given the choice between cold meats and cheese, I choose something sweet. Thus, Flo was nice enough to get our own jam out of the car so I can have breakfast.

Today’s mission was to get to Porto. Portugal’s second biggest city is our last big ticket item on the list. Probably since Mat and Liz introduced us to port wine and Port Night, going to Porto and tasting port wine became a thing in our minds. And now was the time to do it.

Being so tired we couldn’t be bothered to find a way around the toll road and add extra time to the journey. We just paid the toll and were in Porto in under 2 hours. Before lunch, with a good couple of hours before we needed to find a camp ground for the night. Thus, we started to explore the city.

Parking somewhere on the south bank of the river Douro, we were in walking distance to the inner city. The first thing that we came across was a cable car up a nearby hill. A short check in the guide book told us that it’s a thing to do to get views over the city and river so we hopped into it straight away. A good start already.

From the cable car, we took the amazing bridge over the Douro. On foot. The bridge actually has two levels: The upper one is for the metro and pedestrians taking in the views nowadays, the lower level is for cars, buses and more pedestrians.

On the other side of the river, we realized just how much it reminded us of Wellington. The inner city is walkable without problems, everything is close by actually. It is rather hilly and you go up and down and back up again. And it was just…charming. And compact. Of all the cities we visited lately, Porto is probably the one we liked most. More than Lisbon and Barcelona. It’s just…nice to spend time here.

From the Ponte de Luís I it is about 50 meters to the Sé, Porto’s cathedral. It was lunchtime though and we were hungry. So we went to a hipster restaurant to enjoy some proper food. The waitress shook her head when I told her I’m vegetarian and I had to go with starters and side dishes. We thoroughly enjoyed it anyway. 🙂

After lunch, we stuck to our guns and decided to walk around for the first day as it had worked well for us in Lisbon. The Lonely Planet suggested a walking tour and we stuck to it. A detour to the train station was necessary to change baby’s diaper. So we got to see the artfully hand painted tiles’ in there as well. On Rua da Flores we ended up in a café with more pastel to eat.

But Porto is all about port wine, really. Vila Nova de Gaia on the south bank is full of wine lodges, each sprouting a big name in port wine. Tours and tastings are advertised everywhere, in every shop, every café, every bar. In the chocolate place, I ended up buying a dark chocolate filled with port wine ganache. Made with Graham’s Six Grape port wine.

At 4pm, we headed out to find a camp for the night. Preferably one with a bus connection back into the city so that tomorrow, we could visit a lodge.

The first one was already completely full. Flo dreaded the next one as it had bad ratings on the usual websites. They had space though. It’s a municipal camp ground and they were suckers for bureaucracy. It was the first place that Number 3 needed papers to be allowed to stay. Everywhere else, Flo and my national ID card was enough; here Baby needed his passport.

We rolled our eyes but it did it, went to a patch that looked okay and started to pitch the tent. We had booked electricity for the two compulsory nights so a staff member came by to connect us. When he saw that we wanted to have electricity in a tent, he outright refused to connect us. We never had a problem with this in more than a month of travelling…here, no way. So we were stuck here for two nights and a full day without electricity to charge cell phones, laptops and the camera. Our mood hit rock bottom.

Just when we were debating on leaving again, we got company. One of the fellow campers wanted to have a look into our roof tent. When he learned why we were so upset, he lent us his powerbank to charge our phones at least. Later, he also charged our camera battery in his camper. So kind!