Rioja valley | 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.