Day 4: Traveling from French to Spanish Wine Country

Intro
Days 1 & 2
Day 3

Day 4 started out great with more of those yummy, homemade chocolate croissants at our B&B in Bordeaux. Breakfast of champions!

The first stretch of our drive was along a small road that went through cute French towns and lots of wooded areas. You can see the road in the picture below along with a random church we saw.



Then it led to a huge logging area. I never knew that France had such a huge pine industry! There were hundreds of piles of logs like this one below. Pretty interesting to see.


After the logging fields, we started to see more hills that were leading into the Pyrenees mountains.

Random...

As we drove closer to the mountains, the clouds definitely started to look more gloomy.

I just loved seeing all of these little French towns

Lunch was at a little restaurant in the French version of Target, and then we really started our journey through the mountains. It was so green and lush, and the road was really fun (lots of twists and turns). All of the mountain towns looked like something out of a movie - stone buildings with colorful shutters, flowers, and cool streetlamps. We even saw one herd of sheep that had the CUTEST herd dog. He looked so wise and in charge :)

It started to rain on us just as we were getting ready to enter a long tunnel. Perfect timing! Brian and I joked, wouldn't it be awesome if it was sunny at the other end of this tunnel? Crazy, but this is honestly how it looked on the other side!

Sun!

We had made it to Spain, and the weather was definitely welcoming! As we drove, we saw a few towns that were perched on hills like this one.


This lake was so green and huge! We drove along it for quite a while.

After lots of fun roads and changes in scenery, we arrived at our stop for the night - Logroño. Our hotel was really nice and right in the middle of old town. To park the bike overnight, the hotel had a parking garage that you entered through a vehicle elevator. I had never seen that before!

Logroño was a cute town in the Rioja region of Spain, which is famous for its wine. So we walked around and found some outdoor seating where we could drink wine and people watch until the restaurants opened. Spaniards don't eat dinner until around 10pm, so the restaurants don't open till 8:30 or 9pm. That first night we were pretty hungry around 7, but luckily Spanish bars serve snacks with their drinks :)




Once the restaurants started to open, we walked around the restaurant district, scoping out our options. We knew we wanted tapas, but each restaurant looked so different! When it started to rain, that helped us make a quick decision on where to eat! Spanish tapas is really different from what I've experienced in the States. Each tapas restaurant is pretty narrow and has different types of food displayed in glass, like a pastry shop. Then you point out what you want and you eat it there at the little bar. Stuffed red peppers, dried meats, and fried fish were among our favorites of the tapas selection. And of course it was all enjoyed with delicious, cheap Rioja wine! Brian was so proud - he found a 2 euro bottle of wine that was so good!



It was a great first day in Spain!